Fathers and Sons
by psyscaper
Summary: A case hits close to home for Tony who discovers a long-kept secret. Final Chapter posted.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is only my second fan fic ever, and my first NCIS story. I know nothing about forensics, chemistry or the military, so please be kind if you decide to review. All constructive criticism is appreciated.

Summary: A case hits close to home for Tony who discovers a long-kept secret.

Disclaimer: This story is purely a figment of my imagination, albeit with borrowed characters. I promise to return them in good working order. I don't own anything and can't afford a lawyer, so please don't sue!

* * *

The police cruiser slowly made its way down the dark alley, its searchlights sweeping back and forth along the dingy warehouse walls and the trash strewn ground as the officers looked for anything out of the ordinary.

"Man, I hate working the graveyard shift in the warehouse district," the driver groused to his young partner.

"Tell me about it," his partner agreed. "This place is bad enough in the daytime." He checked the clock on the dashboard. 3 AM. "Only a few hours more," he said.

Just then, they heard the loud report of a dumpster lid slamming shut. The officers trained the searchlights a few yards ahead just in time to see two figures duck behind a stack of wooden pallets. The two police officers got out of the cruiser and headed towards the pallets. Each kept a hand on his holstered sidearm, ready to draw if necessary.

Their flashlights trained on the pallets, they identified themselves and ordered the two figures to come out. When they received no response, the elder of the two officers drew his service weapon and nodded to the younger man who drew his as well. Cautiously, the two officers rounded the stack of pallets. Instead of finding two people, though, they found an open window. They were about to investigate further when they heard a muffled scream from somewhere inside the warehouse.

The officers quickly made their way into the warehouse and followed the sound of the screams until they came upon a teenaged couple. The young man was holding the hysterical girl, trying to calm her when the officers' flashlights lit up his face and blinded him. Instinctively his hands flew up in the air.

"We didn't do it!" the boy shouted. "We just found him like that!"

The two officers shared a look. "You found who like what?" the senior officer asked.

The teenagers stepped aside and the boy pointed at the floor behind them. The officer shone his flashlight in the direction pointed and gasped as it illuminated the lifeless body on the cold warehouse floor.

* * *

Leroy Jethro Gibbs stood in the middle of his basement carefully shaping the hull of his latest boat. The smell of sawdust wafted through the air as the local Farm Bureau report blared from the small TV nearby. Pausing for a moment, he took a swallow of bourbon from his NIS coffee mug before grabbing the carpenter's plane to take another pass when the cell phone next to the TV started ringing. With a sigh he picked up the phone and glanced at the caller ID. DiNozzo. He set the hand tool down and flipped open the phone.

"Yeah," he barked.

"Ah… working on the boat again, eh, Boss?" his senior field agent's voice came through the receiver.

"What've you got, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

"Dead sailor in Manassas," Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo replied. "A couple of beat cops found him when they chased a couple teenagers into a warehouse."

"Call Ducky, Ziva and McGee and get over there with the van. I'll meet you there," Gibbs ordered.

Tony smiled. "They're already on their way in. See you there, Boss," he said and hung up the phone.

An hour later the NCIS evidence van pulled up to the warehouse on Industry Drive. Tony was surprised to see the M.E.'s van already parked outside. "Ducky must've let Palmer navigate _and_ drive," he chuckled as Officer Ziva David and Special Agent Timothy McGee exited the opposite side of the vehicle.

Stifling a yawn, DiNozzo grabbed the two cups of coffee from the van's cup holders and made his way into the warehouse. He located his superior hunched over the body talking with the Medical Examiner and held out one of the coffees as he approached.

"You got here quick, Boss," DiNozzo remarked.

Gibbs took the proffered cup and began barking out orders to his team. "Ziva, photos and sketch. McGee, bag and tag." He paused to take a drink of coffee and stared at DiNozzo with raised eyebrows. "You waiting for an invitation, DiNozzo?" he asked coolly.

Tony hesitated. "Ah… well… I… uh, I'll go talk to the flatfeet and the kids; see what they know," he said and turning on his heels, walked over to the teenagers and the two police officers who had found the body.

Gibbs turned back to the M.E. "Do we have a time of death yet, Duck?" he asked.

Dr. Donald Mallard deftly removed the liver probe from his patient and studied it for a moment. "Judging by the core temperature, I'd have to say no more than 24-36 hours, Jethro," he replied in his crisp British accent.

"How about a cause of death," Gibbs asked.

"Well, I won't know for certain until I get him home, but at first glance, I'd say blunt force trauma. He was beaten to death. Notice the bruising on the face and upper torso," he said as he pointed at the body. "Of course, anything is possible. I remember a time in Guinea where a young man appeared to have been beaten to death…"

Gibbs rolled his eyes slightly and stood up. "Let me know when you have something, Duck," he said as he walked over to where DiNozzo was interviewing the teenagers. They both appeared young, maybe around fifteen, though the streets had hardened them to some degree. Still, finding the corpse had clearly unnerved the two. The girl had calmed down, but was still shaking.

Seeing Gibbs approaching, DiNozzo wrapped up the interview, handing each of them a business card and asking them to call, collect, at any time should they remember any other details.

"Hey, Boss," he said. "The kids both swear they don't know anything. Said they just hid in here to get away from the cops. They're both runaways – homeless and living on the streets. They met up a few weeks ago and have been hanging together since. They literally stumbled over the body trying to find a place to hide."

Gibbs glanced over at the police officers. "What about them?" he asked.

"Officers Johnson and Peete, Manassas PD, were on a routine patrol down the alley when they spotted the two kids. They were outside the building when the girl started screaming. They called for backup and secured the scene when they found the body. Of course, they rummaged through the vic's pockets to find his ID first." He looked down at his notebook. "Petty Officer Chad Benson. As soon as they found out he was Navy, they called us," DiNozzo reported.

Gibbs scowled. He hated when local LEOs compromised his crime scenes. Shaking his head he told DiNozzo to arrange to have the teenagers taken to NCIS headquarters for further questioning.

"You really think they're hiding something, Gibbs?" DiNozzo asked softly.

Gibbs just looked at him. Then, glancing over at the two kids, he added the order to make sure they got something to eat as well. With a slight smile and an understanding nod, Tony waved the two teens back as he dialed NCIS headquarters to request the transport.

* * *

With all the trace evidence and the body collected, the team returned to headquarters. By now it was nearly eight o'clock and their investigation was just getting started. Tony had escorted the teenagers back to D.C., stopping for breakfast along the way, of course. After depositing his two charges in separate interrogation rooms, he returned to the bullpen, passing McGee's desk just as the junior agent's stomach gave a rather loud growl.

"Hungry, Probie?" Tony asked, a satisfied grin spreading across his face.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact," McGee retorted. "While you were out stuffing your face, Ziva and I have actually been working!" He didn't even try to hide his irritation.

"Hey, don't blame me, Probie!" Tony responded innocently. "I was only following Gibbs' orders."

"You could have brought something back for the rest of us!" Ziva chimed in angrily, not looking up from her terminal. "Typical. Only thinking of yourself!" she added.

"Really. What to you call this?" Tony asked, lifting the bags he was carrying and setting them on his desk. He took out a couple of Styrofoam containers and put one on Gibbs' desk and handed the other to McGee who practically tore the container apart opening it. Looking around for some utensils, McGee looked up just in time to catch the small plastic wrapped set Tony had just tossed him.

Ziva moved around her desk and took the container Tony now held out for her. "I take that back," she said. "Thank you, Tony," she nodded as she stepped back to her desk.

Tony had just finished passing out the coffee when Gibbs returned to the bullpen. He glared at McGee as the young agent stuffed an entire sausage into his mouth. "I'm so hungry I could…" McGee's voice trailed off as he noticed Gibbs staring at him. He chewed quickly.

"Sorry, Boss," he said swallowing hard, feeling the heat rising up his neck and engulfing his cheeks and ears.

"You finished with the background on Petty Officer Benson?" Gibbs growled.

"Well, ah… I can tell you that he worked in ordnance stationed at Norfolk. His CO, Lt. Commander Louis Johnson, said Benson was on leave until this morning. He hadn't even realized Petty Officer Benson was missing until I called him. He said Benson was an exemplary sailor; he had received several commendations since coming to Norfolk."

Gibbs continued to stare at him. "Is that it, McGee?" he asked quietly.

"Well…ah…" McGee stammered. "I was just about to…ah…" he sighed. "On it, Boss," he replied and shoved the styrofoam container aside to concentrate on the background trace.

Gibbs turned to Ziva who stood and grabbed the remote for the plasma monitor. "According to both Abby and Ducky, there wasn't enough blood in the warehouse for our petty officer to have been killed there. We found very little blood evidence at the scene and nothing to indicate any sort of disturbance there." She paused as she switched to a picture of the alleyway.

"Likewise, there was no blood found outside the warehouse or in the alley," she continued.

"So, our victim was killed somewhere else and dumped at the warehouse," Gibbs finished the thought. "Have you found out who owns the warehouse, yet?" he asked.

McGee opened his mouth to answer, but Tony beat him to the punch.

"The warehouse belongs to KFS, a food service company based in West Virginia, though it's been abandoned for the last several months. The company was recently bought out by a conglomerate and they're restructuring. Word is the warehouse is up for sale or lease," he said.

Ziva and McGee just stared at him.

"How did you learn all of that while you were escorting those two teenagers back here and eating breakfast?" Ziva asked with a note of incredulity.

Tony smiled, "I haff my vays, Zee-vah!" he chuckled. Then he turned back to Gibbs. "The runaways have been fed and are waiting for you in interrogation rooms one and two."

Gibbs nodded just as his cell phone rang. He flipped it open and put it to his ear. Without a word, he snapped the phone shut and strode in the direction of the elevator. "Abby's got something," he informed his team. The three agents hurried to follow him into the elevator.

Forensic Specialist Abby Sciuto spun around on her stool to face the four field agents as they entered the lab. Taking the straw of her Caf-Pow! out of her mouth, she greeted the lead agent enthusiastically.

"Gibbs!" she grinned at him. "You'll never guess how our Petty Officer died."

"What've you got, Abs?" Gibbs asked softly.

"Okay. You're probably thinking the vic was beaten to death, right?" she asked. "'Cuz that's what Ducky and I thought at first, too. But we were wrong!" she looked at Gibbs again. "Want to know how he died?" she asked, bouncing slightly on the stool.

"How many of those things have you had today?" Gibbs asked, pointing to the huge cup of carbonated caffeine on her desk.

"It's only my third, Gibbs!" she whined. "Don't you want to know how Petty Officer Benson died?" she asked again.

Gibbs just looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

"I ran a tox screen at Ducky's request," she turned to her computer and started typing. Soon a graph showing the various chemicals found in the victim's blood came up on the monitor. Abby hit a button and the graph filled the large plasma screen on the wall. Grabbing the mouse, Abby pointed to the various chemicals in turn noting that most were perfectly normal until she reached the last one which was shown to be in a much higher concentration than the others.

"What's that last one?" Tony asked.

"Sodium Hypochlorite," Abby answered.

McGee turned toward her, surprised. "Bleach?"

"Bleach," Abby replied.

"Our Petty Officer was murdered," Gibbs muttered.

* * *

That's it for chapter 1. Please let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Thanks so much for the kind reviews!! Makes me want to write some more! My apologies for the delay in posting this chapter, btw. I've had a couple of crazy busy weeks both at work and home. Three huge Cub Scout events and a regular meeting have kept me away from it and I haven't had a break at work long enough to think much less write anything. That and there's quite a bit more dialogue in this chapter and that's something I really struggle with. I'll try to be quicker with the next installment. It's taking me a bit longer to get the story where I want it to be, but I promise it'll really get going in the next chapter. As always, let me know what you think!

Summary: A case hits close to home for Tony who discovers a long-kept secret.

Disclaimer: This story is purely a figment of my imagination, albeit with borrowed characters. I promise to return them in good working order. I don't own anything and can't afford a lawyer, so please don't sue!

* * *

The four agents stood in front of the large plasma screen in Abby's lab. On the plasma was the tox screen graph confirming that Petty Officer Chad Benson had been poisoned with common household bleach.

Tony looked puzzled. "What did he do, drink it?" he asked.

"Don't be silly, Tony!" Abby chided. "Only a little kid would try to drink bleach! Nope. Ducky found a teeny tiny puncture wound in our petty officer's leg," she said as she put an enlarged photo of the victim's leg up on the plasma screen.

"He was injected with it," Gibbs muttered.

"Yep!" Abby confirmed. "We know the how, Gibbs," Abby said. "Now all we need to find out is the when, where and, most importantly…"

"Who," Gibbs finished her sentence as he started to walk out of the lab. "Good work, Abs!

"McGee! I want that background on Petty Officer Benson from the time he was born until he went missing. I want to know who his friends are, who his enemies are, what he was working on, everything! Now!!" he barked.

McGee jumped slightly and followed after him, the two other field agents trailing right behind him. "On it, Boss!"

"Ziva! Find out about that warehouse and whoever owns it. Tony! You're with me."

McGee and Ziva went back to the bullpen while Gibbs and DiNozzo headed to interrogation.

Tony stood in the observation room, watching through the two-way mirror as the teenage girl sat nervously tapping a foot under the table. She was looking down at her hands in her lap which she kept wringing. Her head snapped up when the door opened and she watched as Gibbs walked in, set a file folder on the table and sat down opposite her.

The former Marine took in her appearance; her long light brown hair was stringy and needed washing as did her clothing, though she'd washed her face and hands at some point. Her cheeks were flushed and sunken a bit and dark circles rimmed her brown eyes, eyes that reminded him of another little girl. His jaw tightened slightly at the thought of his daughter and he forced himself to relax, pushing the picture out of his mind. This young girl stared back at him with a mixture of fear and practiced defiance.

Gibbs opened the folder and looked at it. "Your name is Melissa?" he asked, though he already knew the answer. She had told Tony as much. "Melissa Danforth?"

"That's right," the girl replied.

"And you're from West Chester, Pennsylvania?"

"Yes."

"How old are you, Melissa?" he asked quietly, his eyes now boring into hers.

"Fifteen," she answered reluctantly. She held his gaze as long as she dared then dropped her eyes back to her hands which were now on the table in front of her.

"How long have been on the streets, Melissa?" There was a gentleness to this last question that reminded her of her father and she now realized how much she missed him.

"About a month," she replied quietly, not looking up.

Gibbs looked back at the folder. "It says here you live with your mom, you're a good student at the Westtown School; you get good grades, you're a member of the National Honor Society, varsity softball and girls basketball teams." He paused slightly before continuing. "Seems to me you had a lot going for you there. Why did you run away from home?"

"None of your business," Melissa sneered, her defenses quickly dropping into place.

Gibbs considered her for a moment. "Problems at home?" he asked.

She glared at him. "Why don't you just leave me alone? I didn't do anything."

Shrugging he replied, "I'm just trying to figure out why a smart, pretty, popular young woman would choose to leave a perfectly good home to live on the streets."

"Yeah?" she snorted. "What would _you_ know about my so-called 'perfectly good home'?" she responded sullenly.

"I wouldn't." He leaned in a bit and looked her in the eye.

Again she held his gaze a long moment, then looked over his shoulder to the mirror behind him. In the observation room, Tony thought he recognized the look of loneliness and despair in her eyes before the mask slowly dropped back over her features.

"How did you meet Trevor?" The questioning continued after a few moments' silence.

"We hooked up a few weeks ago in D.C. Got tired of being harassed by the cops here so we headed south," she shrugged.

"Why Manassas?"

"Because it's south of here," Melissa rolled her eyes slightly.

"Where were you headed?"

"I told you, south," her voice now had a hard edge to it.

"Atlanta?" Gibbs asked. He watched as the defiant look slowly faded and she bit her lower lip, giving no response, her gaze once again back down to her hands. "That's where your dad lives, isn't it?" The gentle tone was back in his voice.

"Yes," she replied softly. "He's a software engineer there." Melissa thought about the last time she'd seen her dad. She had spent a month in Atlanta with him the summer before while her mother was in Europe. It was the happiest she'd been since her parents' divorce.

Gibbs opened the folder again, this time taking out several photographs of Petty Officer Benson's body. He laid them out one by one on the table in front of her and watched her reaction. Her eyes were drawn to the pictures at first, but soon she shuddered and looked away. A month on the streets hadn't been enough to harden her against such horrors. At the moment all she wanted to do was get away, far away.

Gibbs wasn't about to let her off the hook so easily. "What were you doing in the warehouse?" he asked.

Melissa hesitated before answering, "I told you, we were trying to get away from the cops." She didn't look at him.

"Had you been in that warehouse before?"

"Yeah. We'd crashed there the night before. We were just looking to crash again and we saw the cops coming down the alley. We knew the window was open behind the stack of crates so we snuck in. We figured the cops would find us pretty quick if we didn't. We were looking for a place to hide when I tripped over something. I couldn't see what it was at first. I thought it was a roll of carpeting or something. It was pretty dark. When our eyes finally adjusted to the dark, I saw it was a body. That's when I started screaming." Melissa shuddered at the memory. She'd never seen a dead body before and hoped she never would again.

"And the body wasn't there the night before?" Gibbs verified.

Melissa shook her head. "I wouldn't have gone back in there if it was," she said. "It really creeped me out."

"Did you see anyone else at the warehouse last night or the night before?" Gibbs asked.

Again Melissa shook her head. "This guy we met the other day tipped us off to the warehouse. He said it was abandoned and we could crash there, but we didn't see him or anyone else there."

"Does 'this guy' have a name?"

"I don't know," Melissa replied. "Trev talked to him. I didn't like the way he was looking at me, you know?" she looked up at Gibbs.

"What did he look like?" he asked.

"He was kind of tall, maybe close to six feet. He was old, like in his thirties maybe. Dark hair. He looked like a football player, you know? Kind of muscular," she said.

"And where did you meet him?"

"Over by Shoppers Square," she answered. "We were panhandling over there and he gave us a few bucks. Said he used to work at the warehouse before they closed it down."

Gibbs pointed to the photos. "Did you ever see him in the area?"

Melissa shook her head. "I never saw him before," she said. "Look, I really don't know anything. I just tripped over…the guy. I just want to get out of here. When can I go?" she asked softly.

Gibbs tilted his head slightly. "Where would you go?"

"I don't know," she answered, her throat tightening a bit. "Right now, I just want to go home," she said in a soft child-like voice.

"Okay," Gibbs answered. "I think we can arrange that. Would you like to call your mom?"

Melissa looked at him. "Can I call my dad?" she asked quickly.

Gibbs considered her request. "Sure, but you'll need to call your mom, too." With that he stood up and went to the door, holding it open for her.

Her eyes narrowed. "I won't go back there! If you make me, I'll just runaway again," she replied angrily

Taken aback by her vehemence Gibbs let go of the door letting it close. He asked quietly, "Why? What's so bad about living with your mom?"

Fear and anger flashed across her eyes for a second and she didn't look at him. "My stepdad. I don't want him near me. I don't ever want him near me again!"

Gibbs sat back down and regarded her, noting the look of fear and shame on her face. "Did your stepfather hurt you?" he asked. She wouldn't look at him, but nodded slightly.

He leaned forward slightly. "What did he do?"

Hearing the steel in his voice, she finally looked back up at him, feeling she could trust him. Softly she told him of the sexual abuse that had started a little over a year previously and how her mother hadn't believed her and had turned a deaf ear when Melissa had tried to tell her about it.

A short while later, the two stepped out of the interrogation room. Tony met them in the hallway along with a security guard. He took the folder Gibbs held out for him and copied two phone numbers into his notebook. Tearing the page out he handed it to the guard instructing him to contact Melissa's father in Atlanta and allow her to speak to him and to contact her mother as well. The guard then ushered the girl toward the bullpen while Gibbs turned his attention to the boy in the other interrogation room. DiNozzo went into the other observation room; he had already pulled out his cell phone and was checking out Melissa's allegations as he watched Gibbs interview the teenager.

They learned that Trevor Davis had run away from a foster home in Rossville, Maryland two months before. It wasn't the first time he'd run away. The sixteen-year-old had been bounced back and forth between a number of relatives and foster homes after his father had been convicted of physically abusing him and his younger brother five years before. The boys had been separated for the last three years; their mother had died when Trevor was five. He had police records in the Baltimore area and the District of Columbia, all misdemeanors for panhandling and other vagrancy-related offenses.

The photographs hadn't affected him as they had Melissa. He did corroborate her story though. He said she had told him that she had bought a bus ticket from Philadelphia to Washington and they'd met up on the streets of D.C. three weeks earlier. He'd taken her under his wing when he realized she had no clue how to survive on the street. She had told him she was trying to get to Atlanta to see her father. They were trying to get together enough money for two bus tickets as close to Atlanta as they could get.

Trevor also stated that the two had been in the warehouse the last two nights as well. They had ended up under a freeway overpass earlier the night before with a group of other runaways and street kids, but had left around 2 AM; it had gotten cold and they had headed back to the warehouse. They had been dumpster diving through the alley when the police had shown up. He said they had been looking for some place to hide inside the warehouse when Melissa had tripped over the body.

Gibbs left the boy in the interrogation room and told Tony to contact Maryland's Child Protective Services so they could pick him up. Then he headed down to Autopsy.

"Ah, Jethro," Ducky greeted him as he walked through the doors. "I understand you've spoken to Abigail and you're aware of the actual cause of our young petty officer's demise?"

"Abby said he was injected with bleach," Gibbs said. He walked over to the table containing Petty Officer Benson's body.

"Yes, a particularly painful way to go, I should say," Ducky replied shaking his head slightly.

"Anything else you can tell me, Duck?"

"Well, I can tell you that a more precise time of death was approximately 34 hours ago," the M.E. answered.

"That would put it at about 2400 hours Wednesday night," Gibbs calculated. "Anything you can tell me about where he might have died?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact, Jethro," Ducky replied, "take a look at this." He pointed to the petty officer's leg which was scraped and dotted with scabs of dried blood.

"Looks like he was dragged," Gibbs surmised.

"Mm yes, and I found traces of an oily substance here as well. I've asked Mr. Palmer to run them up to Abby for analysis. They may tell us where our friend was murdered."

Gibbs nodded. "Keep me posted if you find anything else, Ducky," he said as he made his way to the door.

Back in the bullpen, Ziva and McGee were at their desks, running their respective background checks on the warehouse and victim. DiNozzo was nowhere to be found.

"McGee!" Gibbs barked. "What have you found out about our victim?"

The young agent stood up and walked over to his boss's desk. "Petty Officer Chad Benson, 28, worked ordnance at Norfolk. He was working TAD on a new missile project, code named Mercury. He was in charge of transporting and securing the missiles for testing. He had three men reporting to him," McGee brought up three pictures on the plasma screen in succession.

"Seaman Mark Dougherty, 23; Seaman Albert Sacco, 19; and Marine PFC David Rifken, 25. All three reported to work as usual this morning. I'm still running background checks on the three of them, Boss."

Gibbs turned to the Moussad liaison officer. "Ziva?"

Officer David looked up at him. "The warehouse, as Tony stated earlier, was owned by KFS, Incorporated, which is owned by Franklin Foods, a food distribution company. I spoke with someone in Charleston, West Virginia who told me that the company closed the warehouse five months ago and sold it to Teague Investment Properties. According to a manager there, the warehouse has not been leased since it was acquired."

"DiNozzo," Gibbs turned toward his senior field agent's still empty desk. His eyes narrowed and he looked around the bullpen and at the other two investigators. He was about to say something when his cell phone rang.

"Gibbs."

"Hey, Bossman!" It was Abby. "I've got the analysis of the oily stuff Ducky found on our vic, which by the way, was also found on his clothes. I found traces of saltwater, diesel oil and a number of synthetic motor oils used mostly in boats. Not surprising since he was stationed at Norfolk. What is interesting is that I also found traces of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and iron – think fish. I'd say you're looking for a fishing boat or maybe a shipyard that does repairs on fishing vessels."

"Okay. Thanks, Abs." Gibbs hung up the phone and relayed the information to the others just as Tony returned.

Before Gibbs could say anything, the younger man informed him that he had alerted Pennsylvania authorities of Melissa Danforth's allegations against her stepfather and that an investigation was underway. Her father had been contacted and was on his way to pick her up. He also stated that Trevor Davis had been released to Maryland Child Protective Services.

"DiNozzo, McGee, get to Norfolk and interview everyone Benson interacted with down there, especially Dougherty, Sacco and Rifken," Gibbs ordered. The two agents gathered up their gear and headed for the elevator.

"Ziva, I want complete backgrounds on those three." With that, the former Marine strode out of the bullpen and up to the director's office taking the stairs two steps at a time.

Cynthia, the director's assistant, looked up as Special Agent Gibbs walked into the office lobby. She didn't even bother trying to stop him; she just picked up her phone and hit the intercom button to warn her boss. Of course, he was already halfway through the door when the director picked up.

"Jethro, what can I do for you?" NCIS Director Jenny Shepherd smiled up at him.

"You can tell me everything you know about project Mercury," he answered, coming to a stop in front of her desk. "It's a missile test program or something," he continued. "What to do you know about it?"

"Project Mercury?" Jenny asked, then answered her own question. "Well, as you said, it's a new missile with a laser guidance system. The missile locks on to a laser signal up to several miles away and detonates on impact with whatever the laser is pointing to. A person holding the laser can be on the ground or in the air and wherever the laser points, the missile follows. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I do know the Navy and Marine Corps are working with ADI to develop a prototype. I believe they're in the testing phase now."

"ADI?" Gibbs asked.

"Affiliated Defense Industries," she answered. "They're one of the Navy's biggest defense contractors, although they've primarily worked on ships in the fleet, they've recently begun diversifying into weapons and weapon guidance systems." She paused.

"Is there something I should know, Jethro?"

"A Petty Officer who was working on the project was found murdered this morning," he said.

"Do you think it could be a case of espionage?" the director asked pointedly.

Gibbs shook his head. "I don't know yet. We just made the connection and we're in the process of interviewing the rest of the project team."

She nodded. "Keep me posted, then. I'll see if I can find out anything on the project."

With that, Gibbs turned and left.

Both Tony and McGee stretched wearily as they got out of the sedan and headed toward the nondescript building. The drive to the Norfolk Naval base had been too long for McGee who had tired rather quickly of Tony's incessant comments and banter. They flashed their credentials at the young MP at the door and were ushered into an office where they were greeted by Lt. Commander Louis Johnson.

"Lieutenant Commander Johnson," McGee was the first to speak. "I'm Special Agent McGee and this is Special Agent DiNozzo, NCIS. We spoke earlier on the phone."

"Yes, Agent McGee," the commander shook his hand. "Please, sit down," he gestured to the two chairs opposite his desk.

"We're all in shock here about Chad," he said as he sat back down. He looked at McGee. "You said on the phone that he might have been murdered. Do you know what happened to him?"

"We're conducting a full investigation, Commander," Tony said in a formal tone of voice. "What can you tell us about Petty Officer Benson?" he asked.

"Only that he was extremely conscientious. He made sure all protocols were followed and he always gave his best effort no matter what the task," he told the two agents.

"Do you know if he had any enemies? Someone who might want to hurt him?" Tony asked.

Lt. Commander Johnson shook his head. "I suppose it's possible. He was a stickler for rules and detail and that could be off-putting to some. But, he also worked well with just about everyone."

"How about his recent behavior? Was he acting unusual in any way?"

Again Johnson shook his head. "No, I can't think of anything," he said.

"Did he have any problems with any of the other personnel?" Tony asked.

"None that I can think of," Johnson replied.

"I understand Petty Officer Benson was due back from leave this morning," said McGee. "Do you know what his plans were for his leave? Did he mention anything about where he was going?"

"No," Johnson said. "But, it's not something he probably would have mentioned to me. You might want to ask the men he worked directly with, though. He might have said something to one of them."

"That would be Seamen Dougherty and Sacco and Marine PFC David Rifken?" Tony asked, checking the names on his notebook.

"That's right," replied the commander. "They worked with him much more closely than I did. If he were going to mention anything, it would have been to one of them."

Tony nodded. "Is there anything else you can tell us?" he asked.

"No, I can't think of anything at the moment," answered Johnson.

"Well, if you do think of anything, please let us know. In the meantime, we'll need to interview everyone Petty Officer Benson worked with. Is there someplace private we can use?"

"Ah, yes, of course," the Lieutenant Commander nodded. "You can use the conference room down the hall here." He led the agents to the small meeting room. "You can setup in here. If you need anything, just let me or my assistant know," he said.

"We'll need a personnel list from you," Tony told him.

"Of course," Johnson replied. "I'll have my assistant bring that to you and I'll see that everyone is available to talk to you." He looked at both agents. "I hope you find whoever did this. Chad was a good man."

Tony and McGee had completed most of the interviews with the project team and had not hit on anything that stood out as suspicious or that could in any way be construed as being connected with the petty officer's death. They learned that most of his co-workers described the petty officer as inflexible when it came to procedures and protocol, but they also stated that he was fair and a good man to work with. They also stated that Benson tended to keep to himself; none of them knew anything about his plans for leave.

Seamen Dougherty and Sacco both had alibis as they had both been working on the project Wednesday night as witnessed by about eight other people.

"Great," Tony complained as yet another sailor exited the cramped makeshift interrogation room. "We've spoken to everyone involved on the project team and we're no closer to finding Benson's killer." He tossed the personnel file he was holding onto the table and let out a sigh. Rubbing his eyes and stretching his neck, he turned to McGee. "What do you say we check this place out?"

"What do you mean?" McGee asked somewhat suspiciously. "Check what out?"

Tony stared at him a moment with a 'duh!' look on his face. "The facility – you know where they keep the missiles and the guidance systems and all that," he said. "We should probably take a look around. I'm sure Gibbs would be interested to know what we find." With that he stood up and stepped into the hallway. "Besides, I need to take a walk anyway. Might as well look around while I'm walking."

McGee had to admit, he was just as worn out from the interviews as his partner. "We've only got one person left to interview," he pointed out. "PFC Rifken is the last one. Why don't we interview him and then look around?" he asked.

"Maybe because Rifken isn't here right now," Tony answered. He tilted his head a bit, thinking. "Didn't Lt. Commander Johnson say Rifken was supposed to report for duty at 2000 hours?" he asked.

Still seated at the table, McGee sifted through the papers lying around until he came up with the project team's schedule. Looking it over, he replied, "Let's see… Friday… Rifken… yep, 2000 hours."

Both agents checked their watches.

"I've got 2135, how about you?" Tony asked.

"Mm-hmm," McGee concurred. "He should have been here by now."

The two agents went to check with the commander who stated that Rifken had called complaining of the flu. Tony and McGee looked at each other, then turned to gather their paperwork and gear. They thanked Lt. Commander Johnson and told him they would keep him advised of the case's progress.

When they arrived at PFC Rifken's home, they noted the front door had been left ajar. Drawing their weapons, they carefully stepped inside and cleared the space room by room. Once they had determined that no one was there, they holstered their weapons and took stock of the ransacked apartment. In the kitchen, blood was splattered on the floor and cabinets. Tony started rubbing his eyes again. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

A/N: Well folks, that's chapter 2. Let me know what you think! 


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: So much for trying to get this posted sooner! Again, other obligations kept me away and then I came down with a head cold.

Disclaimer: Still a figment of my imagination, still borrowed characters, still can't afford a lawyer.

* * *

It was close to 4 AM when DiNozzo and McGee finally returned from Norfolk. They had borrowed the Norfolk office's newly acquired evidence van to process the scene at Rifken's home and had assigned a Norfolk field agent to maintain security there before heading back to the base to inspect the Project Mercury facility. 

"You think someone kidnapped Rifken?" McGee asked. DiNozzo seemed lost in thought and didn't answer. "Tony?"

DiNozzo shook his head. "I don't know," he answered finally. "First of all, we don't know whose blood it was in the kitchen. And second, there wasn't enough blood to suggest anyone was seriously hurt," he reasoned.

"Whoever did it may have knocked him out," the younger man suggested.

"Maybe," said Tony. "But why ransack the place? What were they looking for?" he puzzled.

"I don't know," McGee replied.

"Maybe," Tony theorized, "he wasn't really hurt or kidnapped. Maybe he just wants us, or someone else, to think he's hurt or kidnapped. Maybe he's gone to ground."

"You think he's hiding?" McGee asked. "From who? Us?"

"Maybe." Tony thought for a moment. "If it has anything to do with that new missile system, it could be someone else on the project team."

It was only upon their inspection of the facility that they discovered a key component in the laser guidance system prototype was missing along with PFC Rifken. In checking with the project's director, they learned that the prototype had been scheduled for final testing in two days. They already had a list of everyone who had access to the prototype from their interviews earlier in the day. McGee e-mailed it and the Rifken crime scene photos to Abby and Gibbs while Tony drove back to Washington.

When they arrived at the Navy Yard, they delivered the evidence they'd collected to Abby's lab. No one was in the bullpen at that hour; even Gibbs had gone home either for some shut eye or to work on his boat and think. The two agents decided to go home themselves for a couple of hours rest.

Tony got into his car and started to pull out of the parking garage, giving McGee a final wave as he passed the younger man's Porsche. _Kid's got good taste in cars, I'll give him that_, he thought to himself has he headed to the Parkway and home. He knew going through D.C. was the more direct route, but he just didn't feel like dealing with the city streets. So instead he headed northeast, circumventing the downtown corridors. He could barely keep his eyes open as he left the Navy Yard and didn't notice the dark-colored SUV that pulled out onto 8th Street a few car lengths behind him.

He was still mulling over what they'd found in Norfolk as he drove through Greenbelt Park, nearing the I-495 interchange. He hadn't been paying attention to his surroundings and hadn't noticed that the SUV that was still following him was now closing in from behind at a high rate of speed. Before he knew what was happening, the SUV had driven up on his right and bumped his rear quarter panel causing him to spin out. Tony found himself wide awake in that instant as the car careened out of control and off the pavement. He felt the car slide backwards, still spinning, down the embankment and took his hands off the steering wheel, knowing there was nothing he could do at that point except brace for the impact at the bottom of the ditch. Now he was wishing he had bought a newer Mustang, one with airbags and shoulder restraints, instead of a classic. The car hit the bottom of the ditch facing the opposite direction and his head whipped back and to the left, slamming into the side window. He vaguely registered the warm liquid pouring down his face and the acrid taste of blood in his mouth before darkness took him.

When he came to, he found himself stuffed into the back of what appeared to be an SUV, his arms and legs bound and his mouth covered with duct tape. The flow of what he surmised to be blood across his face had slowed and he found he was unable to open his left eye. His head throbbed with pain and he felt nauseous. It took several minutes of concentration on his part to keep the bile out of his throat.

When he was sure he was not going to vomit, he refocused his attention on those details that might help him figure out where he was going. From the hum of the tires and the relatively smooth vibrations of the floor, he could tell they were traveling at a fairly high rate of speed. That meant they must still be on an expressway. He listened intently, but heard no voices to tell him the number of captors with him. He figured there were at least two of them though, the one driving and another to keep an eye on him.

Tony shifted a little to try to get a better look at the vehicle's interior. He gasped slightly as pain stabbed through his chest and side. _Great_, he thought, _a concussion isn't bad enough. I probably have a cracked rib or two to boot_. He tried to breathe shallowly through the pain before taking as deep a breath as he felt he could. Holding it, he shifted his weight again until he was lying partially on his back. He gritted his teeth, but couldn't stop the moan as pain ripped through him again. His head throbbed all the more and he felt himself losing consciousness again. He forced himself to stay awake as he looked up. He'd been hoping to get a look out the back window, but apparently the vehicle had one of those covers that hides the cargo area. _Damn!_ _No help there_, he thought as the darkness overtook him once again.

* * *

7:00 AM found Gibbs entering the forensics lab, Caf-Pow! in hand for his favorite Goth lab rat. Abby was already working on the evidence DiNozzo and McGee had left for her. 

"Gibbs!" she exclaimed has she took the giant cup from him. She held up one hand as he started to speak. "I've already got the DNA running on the blood Tony and McGee found in Rifken's apartment. Once I get that, I can run it through AFIS to see if there's a match. If it's Rifken's, it should show up right away." She paused to take a drink before continuing. "I also ran the fingerprints they found through AFIS; no matches other than Rifken. I'm trying all the other databases I have access to now, but so far…nothing."

"Did you take a look at the photos?" Gibbs asked her.

"Mm-hmm," she swallowed a mouthful of liquid caffeine. "I don't think we're looking for a body, you know?" she said, clicking her mouse and sending a picture of PFC Rifken's kitchen to the plasma screen on the wall. "See, this is all the blood they found," she clicked again, bringing up another photo beside the first. With her mouse, she circled the blood on each of the pictures.

"Not enough for a fatal injury," Gibbs agreed. "No other signs of a struggle?" he asked.

"Other than the ransacked apartment?" Abby shook her head sending her black pigtails flying back and forth. "Of course, just because the place was ransacked, it doesn't necessarily mean there was a struggle," she said.

"And just because there's no other sign of a struggle, it doesn't mean there wasn't one," Gibbs told her with raised eyebrows. "Let me know when that DNA test is done," he called out as he headed back out of the lab.

Abby gave his back a quick salute. "Yes, Sir!" she said and turned back to her sacred evidence. Gibbs' voice floated back to her as she said in her mock-Gibbs voice, "And don't 'Sir' me!" She smiled as she heard him say the exact same thing.

By the time Gibbs reached the bullpen, Ziva was already at her desk. Although she had run extensive background checks on Dougherty, Sacco and Rifken, she had been unable to find any other connection between the three men and Petty Officer Benson. Nothing in Benson's background had indicated that he'd had any significant enemies either. She was beginning to think that Benson had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, she hadn't yet been told that a critical component of the Mercury missile guidance system had turned up missing.

Gibbs stopped in front of the plasma screen which still displayed the photos of Dougherty, Sacco and Rifken. Picking up the remote, he added Benson's photo to the display. He stared, scowling at the four men. One was dead and another missing. And it was his job to find the killer and the missing soldier and to make sure the other two didn't fall victim to the same fate.

He looked at the two empty desks on either side of him. He knew DiNozzo and McGee had put in 24 hours the day before and he needed them to be sharp, which meant he needed them to get at least some sleep. But, he needed answers, too. They were no closer to identifying Petty Officer Benson's killer and now they had a missing Marine and a missile guidance system to find as well. As much as might have wanted to let his two field agents rest, he knew he couldn't. Reaching for his cell, he flipped it open and hit a speed-dial key. The phone rang in his ear a few times before he heard the voice on the other end.

"Hi! This is Tony DiNozzo. I can't take your call right now, but if you leave your name, number and a brief message, I'll get back to you," Tony's voice-mail greeted him. A low growl escaped Gibbs' lips as the voice-mail beeped at him.

"DiNozzo! Get back in here! If I don't have your report from Norfolk in half an hour, you're going to be looking for another job!"

Just as Gibbs had dialed his phone the elevator had dinged and out stepped McGee. He was still shaking the cobwebs out of his head as he placed his backpack on his desk. Opening it, he pulled out a number of file folders which he placed on the desk at the same time he slid the backpack onto the floor.

Gibbs turned to face him. The young agent looked beat, and more than a little anxious. He'd heard his boss' threat to fire his partner. Though McGee wasn't sure he believed Gibbs would actually fire Tony, he wasn't convinced he wouldn't either. And that made him nervous for his own job. He quickly booted up his computer and plugged a thumb drive into one of the USB ports. As soon as he could he sent two photos to the plasma screen. One was a picture of the missile guidance component that had turned up missing in Norfolk, the other Rifken's ransacked apartment.

"Whoever wrecked Rifken's apartment, they were probably looking for this," he said as he enlarged the picture of the guidance system. "It's the main component of Mercury. According to Lt. Commander Johnson, they had two prototypes and one was found missing last night. That one was supposed to go through final testing tomorrow."

"Who had access to it?" Gibbs asked.

"Maybe six to eight people, all of them Project Mercury staff." McGee checked his notes. "Let's see…Benson and Rifken…Lt. Commander Johnson and the engineers who designed it." He looked up. "There are four engineers on the list."

"Alright," Gibbs said. "Find out who on that list could have taken the guidance…thing… double-check everything and everyone." He started towards the elevators. He needed more coffee. "And find DiNozzo!" he ordered.

A short time later he was headed once again to the Director's office. Finding it empty, he turned around and went this time to MTAC where it looked like another covert op was being monitored. Director Shepherd was seated in the front row; he sat down next to her and handed her one of the cups he was holding. She smiled her thanks to him.

"I understand you have a missing Marine in addition to a dead sailor?" she asked pointedly before taking a sip.

Gibbs nodded. "And a missing laser guidance system," he added. "We're checking out everyone who had access." It was his turn to take a drink. The hot black liquid felt good as it slid down his throat and it was strong enough to clear his head without tasting too bitter.

An hour later, after learning that several foreign nations, allies as well as enemies, were interested in getting their hands on the Mercury technology, Gibbs returned to the bullpen to find his senior field agent still absent. He tried once more to reach DiNozzo only to get his voice mail again.

"Where's DiNozzo?" he snapped.

McGee shook his head. "He's not answering his cell, home phone or Blackberry, Boss," he stated. The note of worry in his voice did not escape the lead agent. It wasn't like Tony to completely disappear during an investigation. Gibbs just hoped that DiNozzo was simply sleeping through all the calls. It would be unusual for the man, but not unheard of. If he was as exhausted as Gibbs believed he had to be, it was at least possible. Unfortunately, his gut was beginning to tell him otherwise.

Gibbs turned to Ziva only to find her on the phone. He turned back to McGee. "Put out…"

"A BOLO on Tony's car," the young agent nodded, finishing his sentence just as Ziva hung up the phone. He was already typing it up on his computer. "On it, Boss!"

"Don't bother, McGee," Ziva called to him as she got up and started gathering her gear. "That was the Maryland State Police. They found Tony's car in a ditch off the Baltimore Washington Parkway near I-495." She looked up at the two men. "No sign of Tony," she added.

Gibbs' chest tightened reflexively at the news. This day was turning out to be as bad as the last.

* * *

A/N: This isn't really where I wanted to end this chapter, but I really wanted to get something posted ASAP. Consider this Chapter 3a. Keep those reviews coming! They make me want to keep at this story. And to Ivy3, Tony whumping coming up next time w/ angst soon to follow! 


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks for all the great reviews! I'm glad you're all enjoying this. I know I said I'd try to post this sooner, but RL had other plans. First I got sick, then crazy busy again. And I had a tough time writing the scenes w/ Tony. I didn't want them to come off too over the top, if you know what I mean. Let me know if I was successful!

Still just a figment of my imagination. Still borrowed characters. Still don't own anything.

* * *

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs stood on the shoulder of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway staring down at the car below. From his vantage point he could see the badly dented right rear quarter panel and that the left rear portion was partially wrapped around a tree trunk. His only comfort came from the fact that the tree had hit just behind the rear tire instead of closer to the door. There was a chance his senior field agent had survived the crash. 

Ziva David was already taking photographs of the scene while McGee was retrieving gear from the evidence van; Gibbs did not wait for him as he started to make his way down the embankment to the car. He immediately went around to the driver's side, noting the open door with the blood on the window. He stepped around it and crouched down to inspect the interior. There was more blood on the headrest and seat. The tree, he noted, was directly behind the driver's seat where the back seat had once been. Gibbs stared at it for a moment, struck by just how close the tree had come to hitting the driver, how close it had come to hitting Tony. He looked at the front seat and saw that the lap belt had been cut, the buckle still firmly latched. With a gloved hand he picked up one end to inspect it more closely and confirmed it had been cut cleanly with a sharp blade.

McGee joined Gibbs at the bottom of the ditch. He, however, started at the right rear portion of the vehicle. He looked closely at the dented area and noticed what looked like black paint which contrasted with the light blue of the Mustang. Taking out a pocket knife and a plastic evidence bag, he scraped some of the paint shavings into the bag. When he felt he had enough for Abby to test, he sealed the bag and, after pocketing the knife, took out a pen and noted the date, time and location the shavings had been found on the bag and initialed it. Placing the bag in his pocket, he then walked around the back of the car, swallowing hard at the damage. The back seat was almost completely gone; the tree had ripped through it from the left only narrowly missing the front seat. With the dent from the other side, there was just a narrow bit of twisted metal and vinyl pushed up in the middle. He shuddered and wondered how DiNozzo might have survived.

"Maybe he was thrown from the car," he muttered as he approached the driver's door.

Gibbs shook his head. "Seat belt's been cut. He was belted when he hit the tree," he said grimly. He stood up and looked at the ground around the car. Some of the brush along the bottom of the ditch was crushed as though someone had walked on it. He pointed to two narrow tracks that led around the tree and back up the embankment. "What do you make of those?" he asked.

"Looks like somebody could have pulled him out and dragged him back up to the shoulder," the younger agent answered after a moment of thought.

Gibbs nodded and called out to Ziva to get photos of the tracks and any footprints she could find.

He and McGee followed the tracks to the pavement where they found a set of tire tracks. Ziva came up behind them and took photos of these as well. Gibbs stood staring down the highway. They were so close to the Beltway interchange, whoever had taken DiNozzo could have gone in any direction.

The Mossad officer and junior NCIS agent looked at Gibbs; his expression was hard to read, as always. But, if you looked in his eyes closely enough, you could see something. It was there they saw a glimmer of the concern they all shared for Tony. They knew their leader as a tough, hard as nails former Marine, but they also suspected that underneath that gruff exterior he truly did care for each of them in his own way.

As if sensing their scrutiny, Gibbs shook off his reverie and turned to the young man beside him. "McGee," he began quietly.

"I'll have Tony's car delivered to Abby and then I'll help Ziva bag and tag until the tow truck arrives," McGee said, nodding to his boss as he pulled out his cell phone to call the NCIS garage.

Ziva was already making her way back to the embankment, combing it for anything that might look like evidence. Gibbs might have smiled at the efficiency were the circumstances different. As it was, he couldn't bring himself to smile about anything just now. His senior field agent had joined the ranks of the missing and was most likely seriously injured. And he still had one dead Petty Officer and a missing Marine, not to mention the missing laser guidance system; he wasn't just getting nowhere with this case, he was going backwards. And he didn't like it one bit.

* * *

His sense of smell slowly returned, even before consciousness. The first thing to register was the mildew. In his unconscious state he was taken back to a long ago forgotten place where his father and uncles stored much of the merchandise they bought and sold. There had been a small office at one end of the building where the men would gather and discuss the details of their latest acquisition or their plans for the next sale. The small dark-haired boy was often left alone for hours to wander aimlessly through the enormous warehouse. He would imagine himself a pirate, protecting his booty and slaying innumerable enemies. Or he would pretend he was a treasure hunter, like Indiana Jones, searching for the Lost Ark or a Knight on a quest to find the Holy Grail. But, after a while, he would always tire of the game. It was no fun being the lone pirate fighting imaginary foes. And even Indiana Jones and the Knights Templar had had companions on their quests. 

A memory, long hidden in the recesses of his mind, was brought forth. He'd been exploring the warehouse again and had wandered into a small musty room off the main warehouse floor. The floor was still slightly wet where it had been cleaned recently and there was a faint smell of ammonia almost masking the underlying smell of mold and something else, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. A large dark stain covered the center of the floor. It was that stain someone had tried to clean. He'd been trying to figure out what the stain might have been when he heard the door close behind him. Suddenly frightened, the boy had gone to the door only to find it locked from the outside. He banged on the door and yelled as loud as he could until he was hoarse, but nobody came, not until hours later, long after the sun had gone down. The meager light afforded by the single bulb in the ceiling was barely enough to keep the monsters at bay. He'd sat there by the door, alternately yelling and banging and, finally, crying until he heard the lock turning from the other side. Now completely terrified, the young boy huddled in the corner, watching as the door slowly opened and he saw the lit end of a cigar like a disembodied ghost floating through the air enter the room.

He could still smell the cigar.

And though darkness still engulfed him, he slowly began hearing sounds around him. It took him a few moments, though, to recognize what he was hearing. A banging noise high above his head finally registered in his brain and light started filtering in, chasing the darkness away.

He opened his good eye to find himself in a dingy, dimly lit room. Like the room in his memory, there was a single naked bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling, leaving the corners of the room dark. He was seated in a chair and when he tried to move, he discovered that his arms and legs were bound to it as pain shot through his chest and side. His head still throbbed mercilessly, as though he'd had far too much to drink the night before. And once again he tasted the bile in the back of his throat trying to get out. Once again he managed to will it back down.

He looked around the room as much as he could, trying not to move too much. Facing him was a bare wall; he could just make out a door at the far end. Between the wall and where he sat stood a small table. On the table was an ashtray containing a cigar and two cigarettes, all of them lit. The distinctive odor of the cigar brought his mind back to the boyhood memory. Instantly, a chill ran down his spine and his only thought was of escape. He turned his head in either direction, but could see nothing in the dark shadows.

Again he heard the banging noise that had awakened him. He strained to look up to where it was coming from and was rewarded with a new stab of pain from his neck. He ignored it and found the source of the banging to be a window near the ceiling on the wall to his left. It was flapping back and forth with the wind outside. There were other windows up there as well, though they were closed. That gave him two possible avenues of escape, if he could get free of the chair. At this point, that was a big if.

He started testing the ropes that bound him. His arms were tied uncomfortably behind the back of the chair. His legs were tied to the chair at the ankles. He noted that the rope binding his left arm was a little loose. He twisted and wriggled his wrists back and forth trying to loosen it further, ignoring the pain as the rope dug into his skin, stopping only when he heard voices on the other side of the door.

* * *

Back at NCIS headquarters, Abby was going over what was left of Tony's car with a fine tooth comb. She'd managed to pull fingerprints from the driver's door, steering wheel and seat belt. She had even managed to get a partial print from the back of Tony's headrest. Those prints were now running through various databases along with those from the Rifken scene. She had placed the cut end of the seat belt under her microscope in an effort to identify the type of knife used to cut it. 

In the bullpen, Ziva was studying the photos of the scene while McGee was going through a database of tire prints trying to match the ones they'd found. Gibbs had informed the Director of the situation; she had offered to assign him another agent TAD until they found DiNozzo and he returned to duty, but Gibbs resisted. He felt his team could still handle the case. Still, he'd hesitated just long enough for the Director to have her assistant compile a list of field agents in the area that would be available anyway.

Gibbs now leaned on the railing outside MTAC looking out the windows to the river and Anacostia Park on the other side. He took a sip of coffee from the ever-present cup in his hand. _Where are you, Tony?_ he thought as he felt his chest tighten with fear for his agent.

With a sigh he made his way back to the bullpen, sat down at his desk and pulled up the files of the Rifken evidence on his computer. Normally, he would have one of his team review the files, but…he glanced over at the empty desk kitty-corner from his own and forced another sigh back down into silence. He gritted his teeth and turned back to his monitor. They would find Tony, he vowed. And then they would find the ones who had taken him.

* * *

"How much you want us to rough him up, boss?" a deep voice on the other side of the door asked. Tony thought he detected a slight New York accent, though he couldn't pinpoint it exactly. 

"We need to know … his Navy cop friends know … the deal," replied a gravelly voice in low tones. "Do… need…," the voice continued.

Tony's head snapped up at the sound of the second voice and he stared at the door, a look of fear and confusion on his face. In his mind's eye he was back in the other warehouse room. The memory of the man's anger at him for getting himself locked in had sent a shiver down his spine. Although he hadn't laid a hand on the boy, except to drag him roughly through the warehouse, the man's fury was palpable.

_It can't be_, Tony thought to himself, shaking his head in disbelief. _No! It can't be! It's not possible!_

The door opened and two tall, broad-shouldered men entered the room. Both had dark hair and wore expensive looking suits. The bigger of the two took off his suit coat and placed it on the table, then picked up one of the cigarettes and took a long drag from it before setting it back down and leaning over Tony. He blew the smoke into Tony's face, chuckling as the captive agent started coughing.

"I know it sounds cliché," he said, "but we can do this the easy way or the hard way. What's it gonna be?"

When he finished coughing, Tony stared at him a moment. With the cockiest grin he could muster, he retorted, "Sorry, must've left my 'easy' button at home." The grin quickly faded as he felt cold metal connecting with his jaw. His head snapped to his right and he tasted blood in his mouth for the second time that morning. He chided himself; he hadn't seen the brass knuckles, but he probably should have expected it.

"Wrong answer," the big guy informed him. He nodded to the other brute who stepped around the table and, picking up the lit cigar and yanking Tony's shirtsleeve up, jammed the lit end into the exposed flesh at the crook of his elbow. Tony bit back a moan and his face twisted with pain as he felt the cigar burn into his arm.

"What do you want to know?" he spat through clenched teeth.

"How much do you know about Mercury?" the one with the cigar asked.

"Uhh…" Tony thought quickly, "it's the closest planet to the sun, the eighth largest in the solar system. It was named after the Roman god of commerce, travel and thievery, which is what I'm guessing is your connection to it."

His insolence was rewarded with another round of abuse. The man in front of him plowed his fist into Tony's gut while the one behind him grabbed him under the chin and held the cigar up to his ear, stopping just short of another burn. "You trying to be cute?" he growled.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Tony said. "You were referring to the element Mercury, not the planet." He got no further as the two thugs proceeded to pummel him until he nearly passed out again.

* * *

Gibbs looked at the clock; it was nearly 1900. He was about to ask Ziva and McGee for an update when his phone rang. He picked it up. "Gibbs." He listened for a moment and then hung up the phone. 

"Let's go," he said, rising and making his way to the elevator. "Abby's got something." The other two agents followed him.

They were greeted in the lab by blaring music. Abby was busy at her computer. The plasma on the wall showed a split screen image of a DNA lookup. The words 'positive match' flashed on both sides of the split screen.

Gibbs walked over to the CD player and turned it off. Abby waved a finger at him without looking up. "Gibbs! I was listening to that," she complained.

"What've you got, Abs?" he asked, walking over to her.

She pointed to the plasma screen. "The DNA from Rifken's kitchen," she said as she finally looked up at him. "It's definitely Rifken's. As are all the fingerprints Tony and McGee found in the apartment."

Gibbs looked at the plasma, then back at Abby. "All the prints are Rifken's?" he asked.

Abby nodded, "That's right. There's absolutely no evidence that anyone else was ever in his apartment," she told him.

"Well, that would mean that Rifken most likely hurt himself and ransacked his own apartment," McGee guessed. He looked at his boss. "Tony thought that maybe Rifken might have gone into hiding, possibly from someone else on the project team."

"Maybe Petty Officer Benson is the one who stole the missile guidance system and Rifken found out about it. Then, when Benson turned up dead, Rifken got scared," Ziva theorized.

"Well, Benson was the ordnance team lead on the project. Stands to reason he'd have more access to the missiles and the guidance system than Rifken," McGee added. "And Rifken did show up for his first shift yesterday. He was only asked to work a second shift because Benson was gone. And he only went missing after he found out that Benson was dead."

At that point Abby's computer began to beep. She turned to check it and exclaimed, "We've got a match on the fingerprints in Tony's car!" She proceeded to put the new information up on the plasma.

"I ran them through AFIS first, and nothing came back, so I started running them through all the other databases," she explained. "And it looks like whoever they belong to has had a run-in with our friends over in the Hoover building." She hit a key on her computer.

"And the winner is…Salvatore Iapalucci." She brought up a rap sheet on him that she'd pulled from the FBI database and put it on the plasma along with his picture. "Looks like he's a suspect in several homicides up and down the east coast, but primarily in the New York area." A beefy face with dark hair and decidedly Italian-American features glared back at them.

"What does he want with Tony?" Ziva wondered.

"Find out!" Gibbs ordered. "That's a good job, Abs," he said. _Finally, a solid lead!_ he thought. Now all they had to do was connect this Salvatore Iapalucci to DiNozzo. _Yeah_, he thought, _that's all!_ He started to leave the lab.

Abby picked up the nearly empty Caf-Pow! from her desk and shook it at Gibbs. "Hey, you owe me one, Boss man!" she said.

* * *

Anthony DiNozzo slowly regained consciousness. The pattern of interrogation, smart mouth answers and beatings and torture until he passed out had continued throughout the day. Each time he came to, his two torturers, whom he'd learned were named Sal and Joey, were not in the room with him. And each time, he took the opportunity to work the ropes on his arms loose. 

Again, as he came to he realized Sal and Joey had left the room. This was a good thing as he wasn't sure how much more he could take. By his count, he figured he had at least two, if not three, cracked ribs, several burns by now and possibly a broken arm. And, he was sure the concussion he'd suffered in the car wreck had only been made worse. Sal had resorted to using a baseball bat on him while Joey seemed to prefer burning him with the cigar and slashing him with a rather long and very sharp knife.

He tested his ropes again and found they were now loose enough that he was able to free his left arm. He quickly untied the ropes binding his other arm and turned to focus on freeing his legs. Once the ropes were removed, he stood up and stepped toward the door. Immediately a wave of vertigo and nausea swept over him and he nearly passed out yet again. Reaching an arm out, he steadied himself against the wall and felt his way to the door in the dim light. He put an ear to the door and listened closely. When he didn't hear anything, he quietly tried the doorknob. It was locked from the outside.

_Damn!_ he thought and he turned toward the wall with the window. As quickly and as quietly as he could he moved the table under the window and climbed onto it. With every muscle in his body screaming in pain, he somehow managed to open the window and stick his head out. Night had fallen, though lights on the side of the warehouse afforded him some visibility. Looking around, he saw only a bank of trees on the other side of what looked to be a gravel driveway. He saw no one around, so he jumped up and climbed through the window, dropping to the gravel below. He had to stifle a yell as pain shot through his entire body when he hit the ground. Taking another look all around, he made for the line of trees and the cover they provided. He moved far enough into the trees so he couldn't be seen and then turned to follow the gravel drive for several minutes until he came to a paved road. He looked back toward the drive and saw a large sign with an arrow pointing back toward the building he'd just escaped from. The company name and logo on the sign looked vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn't place it. Without knowing where he was and without a compass or even stars to guide him, he decided the best route to take was the one that would take him away from the warehouse of torture. He turned and started walking as quickly as he could manage while trying to stay out of sight.

He had no idea how long he'd been walking; it seemed like hours, but he knew it was probably only several more minutes. Every step was an exercise in pain. He'd already developed a stitch in his side that made breathing difficult before he'd even made it to the road. His entire body ached and his head felt like it was going to explode. Before long his gait was more a stagger than a walk and his eyesight began to blur. He blinked several times in an attempt to clear his vision. He heard a loud growl and he looked around, wondering just what could be out there. Then he realized it was his stomach. He tried to remember the last time he'd eaten. He and McGee had swung through a drive-through burger joint on the way back to D.C. the night before. At least he thought it was the night before. He couldn't really tell. All he knew was that he was starving and he hurt everywhere and all he wanted to do was find a bed and go to sleep for at least three days.

He stumbled and fell to the ground. It took him a couple of minutes to garner the strength to get up again, but he finally managed it and staggered on. But, after a few more minutes, he stumbled and fell again. He felt himself losing consciousness again and fought against it as hard as he could. Before he could get up again, though, a car drove slowly by, searchlights sweeping the ground around it. One of searchlights passed over him and he heard a voice in the car shout out to stop. The car reversed and the spotlight found him again. He heard footsteps in the gravel drawing near him and then he was lifted up and shoved roughly into the trunk of the car. Again his body screamed in pain as he lost the fight for consciousness and darkness surrounded him once more.

* * *

Well, folks, that's it for chapter 4 (or 3b). Let me know what you think. I'd like to say I'll try to post chapter 5 quicker, but it probably won't happen, RL being what it is. Still, I'll get it up here as soon as I possibly can. 


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N**: Thank you everyone for the wonderful reviews and suggestions! (Thanks, too, for the heads-up on military time LtColCarter, I'll try to keep it in mind.) I actually ended up completely rewriting this chapter after reading a few of the more recent reviews. I decided that what I'd already written belonged in the next chapter. So keep those reviews coming - they're helping the story!!

**Disclaimer**: Still just a figment, still borrowed characters, still don't own anything worth anything

* * *

Special Agent Timothy McGee leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms above his head. Glancing at the clock on his desktop, he let out a sigh of frustration; it was now 2218 and he'd spent most of the last four hours trying to match the tire prints they'd found that morning near the wreck of DiNozzo's car. 

Gibbs had been only mildly appeased by the identification of one of the kidnappers and Ziva had gone to work learning everything she could about the man named Salvatore Iapalucci. For his part, McGee had returned to the tire prints, hoping a match would lead him to identify the type of vehicle that had run their partner off the road.

He rubbed his eyes before glancing around the somewhat darkened bullpen. Ziva looked up from her desk at almost the same instant. Each nodded grimly to the other before returning to their work. McGee's phone rang and he picked it up, his thoughts wandering to Tony, where he could be and what he must be going through.

"McGee!" Abby's voice interrupted his worried musings. "I analyzed the paint chips you took from Tony's car and I think I may be able to help you narrow your search for the vehicle that hit him this morning," she added.

That got his attention. "What did you find, Abby?" he asked.

"It's a metallic black paint used only by General Motors. I did some digging and it looks like this paint was only used on Cadillac brand vehicles from 2002-2006. Cadillac only offered it on a few of their vehicles, the two most popular models being the CTS and the Escalade. Apparently GM stopped using it this year and switched to a cheaper alternative," she explained.

McGee was already typing the information into his computer to refine his search. "That's great, Abs!" he told her. "This should really help narrow it down. Thanks!" He hung up the phone just as the search engine spit out a result – the tire prints matched the Cadillac Escalade.

McGee looked up at Ziva again. "Thanks to Abby, I think I may have a line on the vehicle that hit Tony," he said.

At that moment, Gibbs rounded the corner and entered the bullpen. He was carrying a large coffee in one hand and a massive Caf-Pow! in the other. He set the Caf-Pow! on his desk before turning to face the two junior agents.

"What've you got?" he asked tersely.

McGee jumped in first. "I think I found the make and model of the vehicle that hit Tony this morning," he said excitedly. "Abby analyzed the black paint chips I took from the side of Tony's car and found that it was only used by General Motors and only on certain Cadillac cars and trucks from 2002 through 2006." He paused to grab the plasma's remote and brought up the tire prints from the crash scene. "I then narrowed my search for the tire prints to Cadillac cars and trucks from those model years," he added. He hit a button on the remote to bring up the result – the Cadillac Escalade. "Of course, we don't know the exact model year, but at least it's a start," he said.

"Great," Ziva said sarcastically as she stepped around her desk. "There are probably only several thousand of those in Washington, D.C. alone, yes?!"

McGee's excitement seemed to deflate a bit at the comment. "You're right," he mumbled dejectedly, "but at least it's something."

"There's got to be a way to find the one that hit Tony," Gibbs told the younger man. "Find it!"

McGee nodded. "I'll check body shops in D.C. and Baltimore and the surrounding areas," he said. "It had to be damaged in the collision and they'd want to get it fixed quickly to avoid suspicion."

Gibbs then turned to Ziva. "What did you find out about Iapalucci?" he asked.

Ziva took the remote from McGee and brought up the contents of her computer screen. On it was the picture Abby had found along with rap sheets from the FBI and NYPD.

"Salvatore Vincenzo Iapalucci," she began, "34 years old, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to Italian immigrant parents. He began his criminal career at the age of 10 when he started running numbers for a New York City booker."

"Book_ie_," McGee corrected her as she paused to take a breath.

"Book_ie_," she repeated and then continued. "He was arrested at the age of twelve and spent two years in juvenile detention for stealing cars. At fifteen, he was sent to Riker's Island for three years for drug possession with intent to distribute. He's been in and out of prison his entire adult life, most recently in 2004 when he spent a year-and-a-half in a Baltimore prison for assault and battery."

"Where is he now?" Gibbs asked.

"According to his parole officer, he works security at a Baltimore industrial park," she replied.

"Who would hire a convicted criminal to work security?" McGee asked incredulously.

"Another criminal!" a gravelly voice answered from just outside the bullpen. The three NCIS investigators turned to see FBI Special Agent Tobias Fornell walking up to them. He looked at Gibbs. "Your office?" he asked.

Gibbs nodded and the two walked over to the elevator and stepped inside when the doors opened. As soon as the doors had closed, Gibbs flipped the stop switch and turned to face the other man.

"Tobias?" was all he said, tilting his head, his tone a warning. His fuse was getting shorter with each passing hour. It had already been more than fifteen hours since DiNozzo had gone missing and every minute counted.

"Your people need to stop hacking into FBI databases looking for leads on missing NCIS agents," his reply a warning of his own.

Gibbs just stared at his counterpart, waiting for the proverbial punch line.

When he realized no response was forthcoming, Fornell continued, "Ever heard of JMD Industries?"

Gibbs shook his head. "Should I have?" he asked, impatience seeping into his voice. "What does it have to do with Salvatore Iapalucci? Or my missing agent?"

"JMD Industries, incorporated in the island nation of Nevis, owns Finches Point Shipyard and Industrial Park in Baltimore. It caters to the shipping industry. They've got several wet docks and a dry dock equipped to handle some of the largest seagoing vessels on the east coast. Iapalucci works for one of the companies located on the point, which is also owned by JMD Industries. The FBI has been investigating JMD for just under a year; we suspect they're involved in smuggling operations and Iapalucci is the prime suspect in at least three murders along the east coast." He paused to gauge Gibbs' reaction to what he'd heard so far before continuing.

"We've got a man undercover at the industrial park; he learned there's a deal going down involving some sort of weapons system, but he hasn't been able to learn enough of the details for us to move on it," he said.

Gibbs' eyebrows perked up at the mention of the weapons system. "Do you know if Iapalucci was in the Norfolk or Manassas areas in the last few days?" he asked.

Fornell shook his head. "Not him, but another associate of his, Joseph Santoro. Iapalucci's pure muscle; he likes to beat the crap out of people. Joey Santoro is known more for his creativity in killing his enemies. He likes to experiment with drugging his victims or injecting them with different chemicals to see how long it takes them to die." He looked at Gibbs, his meaning clear. Of course he had heard about Petty Officer Benson. Though the cause of death had not been publicized, Fornell had obviously learned of it.

"Your man on the inside, does he have any information about this missing agent's whereabouts?" Gibbs asked pointedly.

Again Fornell shook his head. "No. He knows something's going down, but they've been real careful about who knows the details. About all my man knows is that Joey S killed a guy who stole the weapon system and that a federal agent was nabbed in an effort to find out what we know about the deal. He didn't have any information about who this agent is or where he's being held."

Fornell paused again. "It's DiNotso, isn't it?" he asked quietly. He wasn't entirely sure why, but he liked the kid and he knew Gibbs did as well. He looked Gibbs in the eye. "If I had to guess, I'd say he's being held somewhere in that industrial park. Trouble is that's a lot of ground to cover, with a lot of buildings and places to hide and there's no way to get in there without tipping them off."

"And without knowing exactly where he is…" Gibbs didn't finish the thought. He didn't want to think about Iapalucci or Santoro killing DiNozzo while they tried to locate him.

"What have you learned about this JMD Industries?" he asked his friend.

"Not much, unfortunately," Fornell replied. "I believe I mentioned the company is incorporated in Nevis, a country notoriously unfriendly to the U.S. government. We have no treaties with them that help us gather information about the company's officers or directors or its business and financial dealings. It's one of the reasons we're suspicious," he added.

"We've subpoenaed their local records, but they've fought it all the way." Fornell chuckled bitterly. "Hell, they're still fighting it," he said.

"So, are you here to help us find DiNozzo, or is there something you want from us?" Gibbs asked

The FBI agent gazed back at him for a moment. "You scratch my back, I scratch yours, right?" he smiled. "I figure if I help you get DiNozzo back and nail Iapalucci or Santoro in the process, you can help me get whoever's running the smuggling operation at JMD."

Gibbs nodded. "Fair enough." With that, he turned back to the elevator doors and flipped the switch to open them again. He then stepped out and turned back to face Fornell. "You hear anything else about this, you let me know," he said.

The shorter man just nodded as the elevator doors closed once again. Gibbs went back to the bullpen. "Ziva!" he snapped. "Find out everything you can about JMD Industries. I want to know everything there is to know about who owns it and what they do.

"McGee," he turned to the young man. "You find out everything there is to know about Finches Point Shipyard and Industrial Park in Baltimore. If there's an ideal place to hide someone there, I want to know about it!" he ordered.

He then grabbed the Caf-Pow! and headed back to the elevator. When he stepped out again, he could hear the music blaring from the lab. Abby was typing furiously on her keyboard. He walked in and, stepping up behind the dark-haired forensic scientist, he reached around her waist to place the enormous cup onto the desk in front of her. She jumped a little at the sight of the cup spontaneously appearing in front of her and turned around to face her boss.

"You shouldn't sneak up behind people like that, Gibbs!" she signed emphatically.

"Sorry, Abs," he signed back to her. "Good job on the paint, Abby," he said. "What are you doing?"

"I'm IM'ing a friend of mine who works for Motorola. I'm trying to figure out why the GPS tracker hasn't worked at all on Tony's phone. I've been looking for it since you brought Tony's car back here. I should have been able to find it! There're only two reasons why I shouldn't have picked up any signal at all from it," she said. "One, of course is that the phone's not on. And the other one is…"

"It's been destroyed," Gibbs said.

"Yeah," Abby agreed miserably. "I don't want to think about that one," she said, shaking her head. "What if Tony gets away from this Iapalucci thug? How is he going to let us know where he is?" She picked up Bert, her stuffed hippo, gave him good squeeze and held him close to her. The hippo let out an equally good farting sound.

Gibbs gathered her into a protective hug and kissed her softly on the forehead. "We'll find him, Abs," he told her gently. "But, if you want to keep looking for a signal," he said, "try the Baltimore waterfront."

She pulled back and eyed him suspiciously. "What do you know, Gibbs?" she demanded.

He just tilted his head slightly and said, "Finches Point Industrial Park. Start there." He turned and started to walk out of the lab. "Let me know if you find anything, Abs," he said.

* * *

Tony DiNozzo awoke to find himself once again bound to the chair in the middle of the non-descript room inside the warehouse. The window he'd escaped from had been closed and most likely locked and the ropes now binding him were so tight he could almost feel himself losing circulation in his hands and feet. Twisting his wrists did nothing but cause the ropes to dig even deeper and burn the skin. He gave up after just a few tries and his head slumped forward in defeat. He'd expended pretty much all of his remaining energy on his escape attempt and had failed miserably. 

_It's over_, he thought to himself. _I've got nothing left to fight with. _He thought about Abby and Ziva and McGee. They were probably looking for him right now. _Too bad they'll never find me_, he thought bleakly. Then his thoughts turned to Gibbs he and was filled with a sense of shame. He'd not only failed himself, he'd failed his boss. _Gibbs would never have let himself get caught like this_, he thought bitterly. _Gibbs would have escaped._ Tony could almost feel Gibbs' disappointment in him and it cut him to the bone.

A memory flashed through his mind. He was lying in a hospital isolation chamber. Gibbs was hovering over him, his face bathed in a blue light. Even now, Tony could hear his boss' words to him. "You will not die." He'd believed it then. Gibbs basically had ordered him to live and he had.

He heard his boss' voice in his mind again. "You… will… not… die." Simple, straightforward and to the point. "You will not die." For a second, he thought he felt the gentle head slap Gibbs had given him in the hospital and his head snapped up, his good eye open. But, no one was there. _I gotcha, Boss_, he thought as he steeled himself for whatever was to come. _I'm good_. He almost believed it.

He heard the lock on the outside of the door snap open and in walked his captors, his two tormentors, Sal and Joey, followed by the other man who stood in the shadows, the ever-present cigar in his mouth.

"Don't worry, boss," Sal said with confidence. "We'll break him this time."

"See that you do," the familiar voice spoke around the cigar. The man then turned and left the room.

Once again Tony was filled with the same unnamed fear at the sound of the Smoking Man's voice. _Heh! Smoking Man_, he thought. _What_ _is this, an episode of The X-Files?_ He noticed that Sal had grabbed the Louisville Slugger again.

"So, you want to try and run?" Sal asked as he approached Tony from the side. Gripping the bat tightly, he quickly swung and connected with Tony's leg just below the kneecap; he laughed as DiNozzo cried out in pain.

It took Sal and Joey only 10 short minutes to render the NCIS agent unconscious for the umpteenth time that day.

"This is getting boring," Joey commented as they sat down at the small table. Since the escape attempt, it was decided that they couldn't leave the fed alone, even if he was out cold.

Sal pulled out a deck of cards and the two started playing, waiting for their charge to awaken again. "Maybe you should let me try a few things with him," Joey told his partner. "I bet I can make him talk."

"Boss said he don't want no drugs used on him," Sal retorted. "Said he can't trust the information if he's drugged when he gives it."

"Yeah, well if he doesn't start talking soon, it won't matter, now will it?" Joey replied.

All through the night, the two men took turns alternately interrogating and torturing DiNozzo. After nearly five more hours, they still hadn't gotten a straight answer from the NCIS agent. Dawn was only a couple of hours away when the cigar-smoking man returned; he was not happy to find his two interrogators had learned nothing of use from their captive and that once again they had tortured him into oblivion.

"What do you want us to do with him, boss?" Sal asked.

"He's obviously not going to tell us anything," the man replied.

"You want us to finish him?" asked Joey.

The cigar-smoking man just stared at the unconscious agent for a moment, an odd look on his face.

"Boss? You want us to finish him?" Joey again.

He looked up and shook his head. "No. No, take him back to D.C. and dump him somewhere."

"But, boss, he could be found!" Sal protested.

The cigar-smoking man glared daggers at him. "I'm well aware of what _could_ happen," he said coldly. "Take him back to D.C. and dump him somewhere," he reiterated. "Just don't get caught!" he admonished before turning and leaving the room once again.

The two men looked at each other. "It doesn't make any sense!" Joey said. "Why not just kill the guy? He's no use to us and he could ID us and maybe this place, too! I don't get it!! he ranted.

"Neither do I," Sal agreed. "But, that's what the boss wants, so that's what the boss gets!" he said as they started untying the federal agent and carried him out of the room and through the back of the warehouse to the trunk of the waiting car. The two men climbed into the car and made their way out of the parking lot, down the gravel driveway and to the road. They turned and followed the road to the Interstate, heading back to Washington, D.C.

* * *

That's it for this time. Next chapter should be up quicker since it's already mostly written. Let me know what you think of it. Remember, reviews help me write better! 


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N**: Once again, I apologize for the tardiness in bringing this to you. I'm just as frustrated at not having as much time to write it as I'm sure you must be in having to wait to read it. I won't burden you with excuses, except to say that I was waffling a bit trying to figure out just how badly injured Tony should be. Just know that I am working diligently to keep the story going. It's getting more interesting now. At least I think so and hopefully you'll agree. As always, let me know what you think.

**Disclaimer**: Still a figment of my own imagination. Still borrowed characters. Still don't own anything worth anything and still can't afford a lawyer.

* * *

The early morning sun was just beginning to shine into the well-appointed office as NCIS Director Jenny Shepherd sat behind her desk, her phone pressed to her ear. "Yes, I'll have a team on scene within the hour. Thank you, Captain." She slowly hung up the phone and closed her eyes. She hesitated for the briefest of moments before she hit the intercom button and spoke to her assistant. 

"Cynthia, I need to see Special Agent Gibbs immediately."

A few minutes later, Gibbs walked into her office, his demeanor all business. By then the Director had gotten up from the desk and stood at the window, contemplating the phone call she had just received.

"You wanted to see me, Jen," he said. When she finally turned to face him, he noted the weariness on her face. He knew she didn't like losing agents any more than he did and the look she wore now worried him. It was the look she always got whenever an agent went down. He felt his chest tighten reflexively as he waited for her response. He had to work a bit to keep his facial expression impassive.

"I just got a call from Metro PD," she said softly. "About an hour ago a jogger found Agent DiNozzo in Rock Creek Park." His chest relaxed slightly. _She said_ _'Agent DiNozzo,'_ he thought to himself, 'not _Agent DiNozzo's _body_. He's still alive.'_

"He was unconscious and unresponsive when Metro officers arrived," the director continued. "EMTs took him to Bethesda."

Gibbs nodded and turned to leave.

"Jethro," she stopped him. "I know you want to go to Bethesda and check on him. But I need you to get a team to Rock Creek Park and process the scene first. Captain Wilkes will fax over their report as soon as it's finished. They're waiving jurisdiction."

That last bit almost made him smile. Almost. Instead, he merely nodded again and this time walked unhindered out of the office. He was on the phone with Ducky before he reached the stairs. The M.E. instantly agreed to go to Bethesda to check on the younger agent while Gibbs and his team processed the scene at the park. Gibbs then dialed forensics and updated Abby. She, of course, wanted to accompany Ducky to Bethesda, but Gibbs told her he'd need her to be ready to work on any evidence they found at Rock Creek Park. Besides, she was still working on all the other evidence from the earlier crime scenes. She reluctantly agreed to wait only after Gibbs promised to personally take her to see Tony.

He and McGee entered the bullpen at the same time from opposite directions. Ziva was already at her desk, still working on the background check on Salvatore Iapalucci.

"Don't sit down, Elf Lord," Gibbs told the junior agent. He reached his desk and after retrieving the keys to the evidence van and tossing them to McGee, he grabbed his service weapon from a drawer. Strapping the holster to his belt, he apprised his team of the latest development. Naturally, while they were elated that Tony had been found, both of the younger agents wanted to know more about their partner's condition.

"They found Tony? Is he alright?" Ziva asked, the concern in her voice readily apparent.

"Did they say what happened to him?" McGee asked with a comparable degree of worry.

"Yes, they found him; I don't know and no, McGee, they didn't," Gibbs responded to each of their questions somewhat abruptly.

He grabbed another set of keys from his desk drawer as he waved the other two agents out of the bullpen. "Go!" he told them. "Get over to Rock Creek Park and get whatever evidence you can find. I'll meet you there."

Nearly four hours later, Ziva and McGee were on their way back to NCIS headquarters having scoured the area of the park in which Anthony DiNozzo had been found. They had collected every piece of loose trash, leaves and cigarette butts and had found several shoe prints in the dirt near where the Metro officers had said DiNozzo had been unceremoniously dumped. They had made casts of all of the shoe prints and photographed everything within a four meter radius while Gibbs spoke with the Metro PD officers and interviewed the woman who had found the unconscious agent. Gibbs had then interviewed a number of other early morning joggers who had been in the vicinity when DiNozzo had been found. No one, it seems, had seen anything out of the ordinary.

Once he'd wrapped up the interviews, Gibbs had taken a last look around the perimeter to make sure nothing was missed and was surprised when a glint of sunlight reflected off what looked to be a metal surface half hidden in the underbrush. He knelt down and moved aside a small plant to find a hunting knife, the serrated edge covered with blood. He called McGee over and the younger agent held out a plastic evidence bag while Gibbs dropped the bloody knife into it. He stood up to continue his final check of the scene.

With the knife and the rest of the evidence packed up and on its way back to Abby's lab along with Ziva and McGee, Gibbs got into the unmarked sedan and headed over to the Navy hospital at Bethesda.

He found DiNozzo's room with Ducky sitting in a chair near the bed regaling the unusually still form of his senior field agent with some anecdote that no doubt reminded the M.E. of the current situation. At his arrival in the doorway, Ducky looked up and nodded. "Hello, Jethro," he said and, noting the question in Gibbs' eyes as he entered the room, responded gravely, "they've only just moved him out of Recovery a short time ago. Given the severity of his concussion and the internal injuries he's suffered, he may not be waking up very soon, I'm afraid."

"That bad?" Gibbs asked quietly, his eyes riveted on the body lying in the bed, his answer right there in front of him. The younger man's head as well as the left eye and ear were wrapped in gauze. A nasal canula provided needed oxygen and the left forearm was encased in a fiberglass cast from elbow to hand while an IV tube had been inserted into the right arm, just above the bandaged wrist. Gibbs couldn't help noticing that both of Tony's arms and chest were covered with bruises, cuts both large and small, as well as a number of circular burn marks about the size of a cigar. The part of his face that wasn't hidden under gauze was also bloody, swollen and bruised.

Gibbs let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and turned back to his old friend. "What did the doctor say?" he asked.

The M.E. hazarded a glance in Tony's direction. "They haven't listed his condition yet, but if I had to guess, I would wager it will be serious," he said softly. "The severity of the concussion alone is serious enough as it presents the possibility of brain damage." Ducky forced himself to detach to some degree before turning to the other man and continuing. "There is some swelling of the brain and Dr. Morris considered bringing in a neurosurgeon to drill a hole in his skull to relieve the pressure," he explained in a more clinical tone. "But he decided that at this point the swelling isn't too severe, so they're trying to reduce it using medication first."

He paused a moment before continuing. "Add to that a broken orbital bone, two broken ribs, bruised kidneys, hairline fracture of the radius, bruises, cuts, lacerations and burns too bloody numerous to count…" his voice shook and his hands balled into fists as he spoke. _So much for staying detached_, he thought to himself. He took a breath to calm his anger. "Well, you get the picture," he completed the litany of injuries with a sigh.

Gibbs' jaw clenched as the good doctor intoned all that his senior agent had suffered at the hands of his assailants. A rage began to build within him as he considered what had been done to Tony and once again he vowed to himself that he would find those responsible and would make them pay for what they had done.

He stayed with Tony and Ducky for over an hour, hoping that Tony would regain consciousness. Every so often a nurse would come in, take readings from one or more of the machines monitoring DiNozzo's heart rate, breathing and blood pressure or change the IV bag and make a notation on his chart. At one point he leaned over the bed and in a soft voice ordered the younger man to survive. He knew Tony was strong and he knew Tony was a fighter. He also knew Tony would always follow a direct order and Gibbs would use whatever means were at his disposal to see his agent through this.

When it was obvious that Tony would not be waking any time soon, Gibbs went looking for the ER doctor. While he trusted Ducky implicitly, he still wanted to get the details and hear the prognosis from the doctor who had treated DiNozzo. Of course, the doctor gave him pretty much the same report he'd gotten from Ducky: Tony's concussion was quite severe and had resulted in swelling of the brain, though it wasn't as serious as it could have been. Given the time between the car crash and when he was brought into the hospital, the doctor speculated that had he been taken to a hospital immediately, the swelling probably could have been prevented. As it was, the swelling, though worrisome, had not yet become critical. The hope was that it would reverse course quickly enough with medication alone, making surgery unnecessary. However, surgery was still a possibility to expedite recovery in case the swelling did not diminish. The doctor did stress, though, that there was no way to know the extent of any brain damage until DiNozzo returned to consciousness. The next 24 to 48 hours would be critical.

The doctor also speculated that the internal injuries and at least some of the facial injuries most likely resulted from the car accident. There was no doubt about the rest of the injuries, however. The rope burns on the wrists, the bruised kidneys, lacerations and burns could only have come from being bound and tortured.

Still, the prognosis, apart from the possibility of brain damage, was actually quite favorable.

"As long as the swelling in the brain diminishes," the doctor told him, "there is no reason to expect anything less than a full recovery. We took a CAT scan when he was brought in and will take another one in a few more hours to determine the rate of decrease in the swelling. The original scan detected no abnormalities and, as long as the swelling has decreased, I expect the second scan to show the same," he explained.

The news made Gibbs feel a little better about the situation. The doctor at least had seemed fairly confident that Tony would come through okay. Gibbs returned to the room to find Ducky still sitting beside the bed, telling Tony yet another story. For once, the learned M.E. had a captive audience. If Tony wasn't already unconscious, Gibbs thought it was entirely possible that listening to Ducky ramble on might have rendered him so.

He let Ducky know the official condition, serious, and the prognosis, pretty good all things considered, and headed back to the Navy Yard with Ducky's assurance that he would call if anything changed.

His first stop was Abby's lab. The pretty Goth spun around on her stool and reached out to take the Caf-Pow! from Gibbs' hand. The agent quickly pulled it back out of reach.

"What've you got, Abs?" he asked, tilting his head to one side.

Abby pursed her lips and sighed. Squinting slightly, she tried to out stare the silver-haired man in front of her, but ended up giving in first. She turned back to her keyboard and brought up a picture on her monitor. "This is the seat belt from Tony's car," she informed him before bringing up another picture and displaying it alongside the first. "And this," she said, "is a piece of the seat belt cut with the knife you found this morning." Gibbs looked closely at the two images. They appeared identical.

"As you can see," Abby continued, "the same knife cut both pieces."

"Any fingerprints on the knife?" Gibbs asked.

Abby smiled at him as she hit two keys on the keyboard. A new window popped up on the screen showing a split screen with two fingerprints. The words "87 match" flashed underneath both images. The forensic specialist again reached out for the caffeine drink. This time Gibbs handed it to her.

"So, do we know whose fingerprints those are?" he asked as Abby took a long drink. She winked and smiled at him again.

"Of course!" she said brightly and, setting the drink down in front of her, tapped the keys again, this time bringing up the picture and rap sheet of one Joseph Santoro.

"That's not all!" she informed him. "I found a trace of blood on Petty Officer Benson's shirtsleeve yesterday and sent it in for testing." She put a hand up before Gibbs could complain about not being informed sooner. "I just got the results back this morning. I was just about to call you when Ziva and McGee came back with all the evidence from Rock Creek Park," she explained. Gibbs just raised his eyebrows at her, waiting for the rest. "It's this guy's," she said, pointing at the photo on the monitor.

"So, we've got evidence that points to Santoro as Benson's killer and one of Tony's kidnappers," he said. Abby nodded.

"How's Tony?" she asked in a worried voice.

Gibbs took step toward her, put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her softly on the forehead. "He'll be fine," he assured her. She looked sharply into his eyes, assessing his conviction. Satisfied, she nodded and turned back to her work. "These guys, Iapalucci and Santoro, are dead meat!" she muttered.

Gibbs left her to her beloved forensics and made his way up to the bullpen. "Ziva! McGee!" he barked. "What've you got?"

Ziva got up and walked over to his desk. "JMD Industries is incorporated in the island nation of Nevis. I've contacted the corporate office listed on the company's web site and got the voice mail of a law office in New York. I've left several messages, but still haven't been able to get hold of anyone. I've requested a subpoena for the company records, but Legal won't give us one. Agent Lee says we don't have enough evidence tying the company to any crime to support it." The Isreali paused to take a breath. "Apparently, an undercover federal agent reporting an imminent arms deal involving a stolen U.S. Navy weapon and a kidnapped NCIS agent isn't enough evidence," she said, her words dripping sarcasm.

"I'll deal with Agent Lee and Legal," Gibbs told her before turning to McGee, raising his eyebrows questioningly.

"Finches Point Industrial Park was first developed as a steel mill and shipyard 1889. It's been in decline for the past 25 years or so and was owned by Baltimore Marine Industries from 1997 until 2003. It was sold at auction in 2004 when Baltimore Marine declared bankruptcy. JMD Industries bought the site with the intention of turning it into a business and technology park, though there is some speculation that JMD is planning to revive shipbuilding and repair on at least part of the site," McGee recited quickly.

"I also tried contacting the law firm listed on JMD's web site; I didn't get any further with that than Ziva did. But, from the source code on the web site I was able to trace the location of their DNS servers to New York City. Their security isn't what they probably think it is; I was able to get past their firewall and I managed to find out who the principle owner of JMD Industries is," he added with a note of triumph.

Gibbs looked at him for a moment before responding. "Would you care to enlighten us, McGee?" he asked. "Or am I going to have to beat it out of you?" He took a step toward the junior agent.

The smug look on McGee's face froze for a second before he stuttered, "Uh… yeah… um… the principle owner of JMD Industries is..." He hesitated and the smugness left his face to be replaced with uncertainty. The thought occurred to him just then that his boss might not like what he was about to hear. "Uh…"

"McGee!" Gibbs shouted, his patience wearing thin. "Today!"

The young agent looked nervously between the former Marine and the Mossad officer. "It's…" he swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "It's one John Michael DiNozzo."

* * *

So there you have it - chapter 6. Things are starting to heat up a bit. What is John Michael DiNozzo's relationship with Tony? And what, if anything, does he have with Tony's current circumstance? Stay tuned to find out! 


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N**: My apologies for falling off the face of the earth for a while. I'd like to be able to blame it on my computer, but it's mostly just been a combination of lack of time, writer's block and dealing with characters who keep saying and doing things that I had no intention of having them say and do. I know where I want the story to go, but these characters seem to have minds of their own. At long last, though, here's the latest. As always, let me know what you think.

**Disclaimer**: Still a figment of my own imagination. Still borrowed characters. Still don't own anything worth anything and still can't afford a lawyer.

* * *

Ziva David and Leroy Jethro Gibbs stared at the young agent, for a moment dumbfounded. Gibbs closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side slightly before opening his eyes again and, stepping toward McGee, carefully asking, "John Michael DiNozzo? Is he related to Tony?" 

McGee shook his head. "I don't know, Boss. I just got the name and I haven't had a chance to check it out yet," he said.

"It's his grandfather."

The two men turned to look at the Mossad officer. She looked at each of them in turn and then shook her head. "I compiled dossiers on all of you, remember?" she asked impatiently. "Gianni Michaelangelo DiNozzo was born in northern Italy and emigrated to the U.S. with his parents when he was four years old," she recited from memory.

"They lived in New York City where his father opened a butcher shop. His father died when he was 21 years old and John DiNozzo took over the family business. Within four years he had expanded it to include a meat processing plant and within ten years he'd added a shipping company to handle the distribution so that he owned almost all aspects of the operation."

"But, Tony's grandfather's got to be in his eighties by now," McGee pointed out. "Could he really be pulling the strings on something like this?"

"And how does a businessman go from meat processing and shipping to arms dealing, kidnapping and smuggling?" Gibbs asked.

Ziva shook her head. "Tony's grandfather may be principle owner of JMD Industries," she said, "but his sons are running the company now."

Gibbs stepped toward her. "If you put together a dossier on Tony and you knew about his grandfather's business, why didn't you speak up about this sooner?" he demanded, his tone more than a little accusatory.

Ziva turned to him. "I didn't know about it," she said simply. "It never showed up in my intel. The butcher shop was simply called DiNozzo's. After he added the meat processing and shipping operations, he changed the name of the company to DiNozzo Enterprises. My guess is one of his sons incorporated JMD Industries in Nevis and then slowly transferred control of DiNozzo Enterprises underneath it over a period of time. DiNozzo Enterprises still exists. But, I found no record of JMD Industries being associated with it." She shook her head, angry with herself for not going deeper into the businesses of the DiNozzo empire when she had arrived nearly two years ago. Had she done so, they might have been able to find Tony before he'd been beaten so badly and they might have been able to apprehend Petty Officer Benson's killer as well.

"Okay," Gibbs said. "So, who's running the company now?" he asked.

"Well, John DiNozzo has three sons – Peter, Mario and William "Vito" DiNozzo. William is Tony's father," Ziva replied. "According to my intel, Peter DiNozzo is the president and CEO of DiNozzo Enterprises and Mario DiNozzo is president of operations. William DiNozzo is the oldest of the three; if JMD is the parent company, it stands to reason that he would control it, given the long-standing tradition of bestowing the lion's share of the family wealth to the eldest son. It may very well be that he is the one who 'expanded' the company into smuggling and arms dealing," she said.

"Or it could have been one or both of the other brothers," McGee countered.

"Or it could have been Grandpa DiNozzo," Gibbs growled. "It doesn't really matter who started it, only who's responsible for it now. Find out. And while you're at it, find out what other companies they own!" he ordered as he stalked out of the bullpen toward the Director's office. He was going to need her help if he was going to convince the Legal department that a search warrant was justified. The fact that his junior agent had hacked into JMD's servers to make the connection to Tony wouldn't help, but he wasn't about to let it get in the way, either.

Partly fueling his anger about all of this was the fact that DiNozzo's own family, his own _father_, might be behind his kidnapping and torture. He shook his head as he took the stairs two at a time. The more he learned about DiNozzo's upbringing, the more he marveled at how well the young man had turned out. Instead of the fun-loving, big-hearted and upstanding person he knew Tony to be, Gibbs realized his senior field agent easily could have turned the other way and become a hardened criminal. He'd obviously had the role models for it. He could almost hear Tony quoting the movie line, "_Come to dark side, Luke!_" It was one of the few movies Tony quoted that he'd actually seen.

Half-an-hour later, Gibbs and Agent Michele Lee emerged from the Director's office, both looking decidedly unhappy. Director Shepherd had agreed with Lee that they still didn't have enough evidence to tie JMD Industries to either Petty Officer Benson's murder or DiNozzo's kidnapping. There was, however, enough for arrest warrants for Salvatore Iapalucci and Joey Santoro and, due to some creative wording on the Director's part, a search warrant was issued for the company they worked for. Any search warrants for the rest of the industrial park would be tricky given the sheer size of the place. They would need more information to narrow down the specific business or businesses located on the property they would need to search. And they would need more evidence tying those businesses to the case.

* * *

Dr. Donald Mallard was on his fourth…or was it his fifth?…story when he heard a slight groan from the direction of the bed. He turned to look at his charge and noticed Tony's eyes fluttering before finally opening and taking in the space around him. 

"Ah, Anthony!" Ducky smiled and stood next to the bed, taking Tony's good hand in his and gently squeezing it. "We've been quite worried about you!" he said, noting the difficulty the young man was having in focusing and the confusion he exhibited once he did so.

"Ducky?" Tony croaked. He was shocked at how pathetic his voice sounded in his ears. He couldn't see anything on his left side and turned his head slightly toward the sound of the M.E.'s voice. The motion caused the room to spin and he closed his eyes until the sensation faded. Opening his eyes once again, he relaxed a bit when his gaze finally rested on the doctor, reassured somewhat by the familiar face.

"I'm right here, Anthony," the older man replied, giving his hand another gentle squeeze. Not given to demonstrations of physical affection, at least not by other men, Tony was surprised at how comforting he found the gesture.

"How do you feel," Ducky asked softly, watching the younger man's response carefully.

Tony thought about it for a moment. His head was splitting, every little movement causing extreme dizziness and nausea and the left side of his face hurt like hell. He shifted his weight slightly and his entire body seemed to scream in pain. He groaned and closed his eyes again until the pain subsided then looked back up at the doctor.

"Like I was hit by a train," he mumbled, a slight smile gracing his features, though to Ducky it looked more like a grimace.

For his part, Ducky put on his best reassuring smile and patted Tony's hand. "Thankfully, it's not as bad as all that," he said. "What do you remember?"

Again Tony thought for a moment before answering. "I was… I was driving home on the Parkway," he said haltingly. "I was almost to the Beltway when someone came up behind me… ran me off the road," he paused, trying to summon the memory. "I remember spinning out of control and heading into the ditch. …Mm…must have passed out."

When he was quiet for a few moments, Ducky prodded him gently. "Do you remember anything after that?" he asked softly.

Tony shook his head and closed his eyes. "I don't remember," he said. "…'mm really tired, Ducky. Can we talk about this later?" He was asleep for the M.E. could answer.

Ducky simply patted his hand once more before letting go. "Of course, Tony," he replied softly. "Of course." Then he stepped away and left the room to call Gibbs.

* * *

Gibbs was just about to get his team and head to Baltimore when his phone rang. Noting the name on the caller ID, the lead agent immediately flipped it open. "How is he, Duck?" he asked without preamble. 

"He awoke briefly," his friend informed him. "He recognized me, first of all, and he remembered being run off the road.'

"That's good, right?" Gibbs asked.

"It's very good," the doctor assured him. "It means that cognitive dysfunction, if any, should be limited. The outlook is quite good, actually. I've notified Dr. Morris and they are running another CAT scan to determine whether there has been any change in brain function," he added.

Gibbs allowed a quiet sigh of relief to escape before asking, "When will they know for sure?"

"I'm afraid it could be some time, Jethro. I'm sure Dr. Morris will want to speak with Tony himself before making any determination. But, he fell back to sleep shortly after waking," he answered. "I expect he'll sleep for at least a few more hours."

"Alright," replied Gibbs. "Thanks, Duck," he said and hung up the phone just as he entered the squad room. He walked over to his desk and reaching into one of the drawers for the sedan keys, he handed one set to Ziva and placed the other set in his pocket before grabbing his service weapon and hooking the holster to his belt.

"Grab your gear," he ordered.

"Where're we going, Boss?" McGee asked as he, too, reached for his weapon and clipped it to his belt. He then grabbed his backpack and fell into step behind Gibbs and Ziva.

"Baltimore," Gibbs answered without so much as a backward glance. "We're going to pick up Iapalucci and Santoro."

* * *

The two unmarked Dodge Chargers came to a halt outside the nondescript building on Shipyard Road, along with a number of other unmarked vehicles. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows behind them as the three NCIS investigators exited the Chargers and joined the FBI agents led by Special Agent Tobias Fornell to finalize their plan of attack. A contingent of NCIS and FBI agents armed with assault rifles immediately took up positions around the back of the building and the swarm of federal agents prepared to storm the warehouse. Gibbs, Fornell, McGee and David all took up a position by the front door. Drawing their weapons, they pounded on the door, announcing their presence and the fact that they were federal agents. About five seconds later, Gibbs threw the door open and they proceeded inside. It took less than five minutes for the NCIS and FBI agents to clear the warehouse, finding no one inside and no sign that anyone had been held hostage and tortured. In fact, it appeared that the building hadn't been used in weeks. 

"Dammit!" Gibbs cursed. He was not at all happy to have come up dry on this. His chest heaved as he struggled to rein in his anger and he turned to glare at Fornell.

The FBI agent was just as frustrated. He put up his hands in a conciliatory gesture as Gibbs rounded on him. "I swear to you, Jethro, my man on the inside said this was where all the deals went down as far as he knew," he shook his head as he tried to placate the man in front of him.

Gibbs stopped in his tracks; he knew it wasn't Fornell's fault. Hell, his own team's intel had come up with this warehouse as the one where both Iapalucci and Santoro worked. He knew McGee would have double-, no, triple-checked it before coming to him with the information. He didn't even have to ask, the young man was so terrified of making a mistake.

"Ziva! McGee!" he shouted. "I want this place gone over with a fine-toothed comb. You bag and tag anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that could even remotely pass as evidence of anything!" he ordered. "If Iapalucci or Santoro were ever here, I want to know about it." With that, he stormed out of the warehouse, got into one of the Chargers and took off, tires squealing as he punched the accelerator.

He checked his watch as he finally pulled into the Washington Navy Yard, nearly 1930 hours. He had wanted to go straight to Bethesda, but he'd made a promise and he wasn't about to break it. He found his forensic scientist nervously pacing the sidewalk outside her basement-level office, her dark pig-tails swirling at every turn. Gone was the white lab coat that covered the tight, black tee-shirt and black mini-skirt that hugged her trim body in all the right places and contrasted sharply with her pale, almost albino-white skin. The platform boots that went up almost to her knees and had little spikes on the toes complemented the spiked dog collar that passed as a necklace, at least according to her it was a necklace. In her hands she clutched a tiny black handbag.

When she saw him pull up, she ran up to the car as fast as the boots would let her and was tugging the passenger door open before he'd even come to a stop. Jumping into the seat, she pulled the door closed and looked over at him.

"What are you waiting for, Gibbs? Let's go!" she said urgently.

Shaking his head slightly, he accelerated away from the curb as Abby pulled the seat belt across her shoulder and snapped it into place. "Abby," he said, glancing at her for a second, "I just got off the phone with Ducky. Tony's still asleep and probably will be long after we get there." Despite his outward calm, however, he wanted to get to the hospital just as much as the young woman beside him. Ducky hadn't given him any new information about DiNozzo's condition and it worried him somewhat. He knew Ducky wouldn't hesitate to tell him if the news was good; given the M.E.'s response, he could only assume that the most recent CAT scan had revealed some problem. He immediately stopped himself from pursuing that particular line of thought. DiNozzo would be fine. _If not, he'll answer to me!_ he thought to himself.

Abby Sciuto looked over at her boss. At first, he'd seemed calm enough, but his expression had quickly darkened and he'd become quiet. Well, quieter than normal even for him. _That can't be good_, she thought. _Ohmigod! What if Tony's really hurt? What if he doesn't recognize us when he wakes up? Tony _has_ to recognize us! He just _has_ to!_ She clutched the bag in her hands even tighter as she contemplated the possibilities. _No!!_ she closed her eyes and admonished herself. _Positive thoughts! Positive thoughts! Positive thoughts!! He's going to be fine. Everything will be fine!_ She kept repeating the mantra in her mind, yearning to say it out loud, but not wanting to intrude on Gibbs' thoughts.

After several minutes, though, she turned to Gibbs and asked in a soft and worried voice, "He _is_ going to be okay, right, Gibbs?"

Gibbs stared straight ahead for a moment before turning to look at her. "He's going to be fine," he assured her with a conviction he didn't quite feel. They drove the rest of the way in silence, each lost in their own worried musings.

* * *

That's it for now. Sorry it's a bit short, but I guess something's better than nothing, right?! Let me know what you think. I promise I'll try to get the next chapter up quicker, but can't make any guarantees at this point. Thanks for the reviews and your patience! 


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I want to thank everyone who reviewed and bookmarked this story. I'm sure you all thought I'd forgotten about or given up on it. But, no,  
I just wrote myself into a corner with it and had no idea how to get it back to where I needed it to be. Then, of course, Real Life got Real  
Busy. I've recently started working on it again and here's a revised chapter 8 that I hope will nudge it back in line. I've started chapter 9  
and will post it as soon as I can beat it into submission. ; ) Thanks again for everyone's support!

* * *

It took Gibbs just 15 minutes to get from the Navy Yard to Bethesda hospital. He and Abby found Dr. Mallard outside Tony's room conferring with the neurologist, Dr. Morris.

"As you saw from the CT scan, Dr. Mallard," the neurologist was explaining, "contusions are apparent here and the areas affected include those controlling memory as well as auditory and motor function."

"Have you assessed the severity of the brain injury?" Ducky inquired.

Dr. Morris paused a moment. "Yes. Based on the CT scans, as well as cognitive and communication assessments, we've determined that Agent DiNozzo has suffered a moderate traumatic brain injury with a GCS score of about 10. Now, the damage may be relatively minor or it could be more severe; we just don't know at this point. Only time will tell what the extent of the damage is."

"What?!" Abby exclaimed. "Tony's brain is damaged?" She turned to Gibbs who placed a protective arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug before addressing the two doctors.

"What kind of damage are we talking about?" he asked quietly.

Ducky glanced at the neurologist before replying, "Now, Jethro, Abigail, at this point there is no reason to panic. Another CT scan revealed that there is a small chance of brain damage, but it could be nothing at all. Dr. Morris just wanted to apprise me of the _possible_ outcome."

"That's right," Dr. Morris added. "I've seen many cases in which tests show possible brain damage and by the time the patient has regained consciousness, the actual damage turns out to be minimal or even non-existent.

"We'll run more tests in the next few weeks to be sure, but in this case, I would say the most we might see is a slight to moderate loss of short-term memory function and perhaps minimal loss of auditory or motor function. Keep in mind that most patients suffering from this level of brain injury generally can make a good recovery with treatment. Many also learn to compensate for any deficits. The fact that he recognized Dr. Mallard when he first awoke and that he remembered the car crash are both excellent signs. I've seen nothing so far that would prevent him from leading a normal life."

"I thought the first scan didn't show any damage. How is this one different?" Gibbs asked.

Dr. Morris made a motion for them to follow him as he started walking down the hall. The three others followed, listening intently to his explanation.

"The first scan didn't show damage, per se, but the possibility of brain damage remained due to the swelling. Unfortunately, the swelling did not diminish as much as we'd hoped. Also, this scan was a bit more detailed than the first. The first scan was more of a general one to give us an idea of what we were dealing with. This one was to pinpoint more closely the areas where there is a potential for damage to occur.

"Here we are," he said as he turned into a small room where he pulled what looked like a DVD out of his pocket and placed into a computer. He entered in his username and password and pulled up the images from the disk. On the left side of a split screen was an image of the first CAT scan. On the right side was an image of the second scan. The image on the right was larger and clearly more detailed than the one on the left.

"As you can see from this image," Dr. Morris pointed to the left part of the screen, "the areas of red and yellow, indicating problems, are larger and concentrated at the edges. This indicates that the most potential for damage is due to the swelling and not due to actual damage to any particular part of the brain."

He paused to let them process that information before continuing. "On the latest scan, you can see more detail, first of all, and secondly, you can see that most of the generalized 'damage' seen in the first scan isn't there. Instead there are only these two much smaller spots of yellow," he said, pointing to the areas in question.

"These areas of the brain control short term memory as well as auditory and motor function," he explained. "As I said, it is entirely possible that Agent DiNozzo will experience little or no loss of these brain functions. Of course, we won't know until he's awake for more than a few minutes. I just wanted Dr. Mallard to be aware of the potential dysfunction," he added.

"What are the chances he will experience loss of memory or motor control and how much loss of function is possible?" Gibbs asked.

The neurologist hesitated slightly before answering. "We honestly don't know. But, if I had to wager a guess, I'd say the chances are maybe 8-10% that he would experience some loss of brain function and judging by the CAT scans, I'd say the amount of dysfunction would range somewhere between 3-5%, give or take a percentage point or two. A lot depends on how he responds to treatment."

"Can we see him?" Abby asked, clutching the small black purse fearfully.

"Of course," Dr. Morris replied, "though he's probably still asleep."

A few moments later Abby stood holding Tony's good hand in hers while Gibbs stood at the foot of the bed, watching his senior field agent for any sign that he would awaken soon. Ducky had stayed with Dr. Morris discussing Tony's condition and treatment.

"Tony," Abby said quietly, "you're going to be fine. You just need to wake up. I know you will, when you're ready." She glanced at her boss. His expression was hard to read, as always, but his jaw was set and there was a darkness in his eyes she couldn't quite identify. She wasn't sure if it was anger or sadness. She knew how much the former marine cared about Tony, though he rarely showed it. She also knew a part of him was blaming himself. He always did when one of his team were hurt on his watch.

Gibbs was still trying to process the information from the neurologist and thoughts of Kate Todd suddenly came unbidden to his mind; he tried not to think of how close he'd come to losing DiNozzo as he had Kate.

Ducky returned a short time later. Abby and Gibbs had sat down in the uncomfortable chairs by the window. The M.E. laid out the treatment plan the doctors would implement once Tony was awake and ready, patiently answering their questions as they came up.

The sound of the three voices broke through the fog of sleep and brought a low moan out of Tony as he slowly inched back toward consciousness. Most of him just wanted to go back to the quiet solitude of sleep, but the voices kept drawing him toward them. Voices that seemed familiar and friendly, voices that made him want to wake up. His head still throbbed and his body still ached, but he longed to hear those voices again. He could almost put faces to the voices, but not quite. It unnerved him a little that he couldn't place who it was, but they seemed comforting somehow and he fought to overcome the blackness that had engulfed him. He moaned again, a little louder and this time the others heard him. Immediately they focused their attention on him and watched expectantly as he struggled to force himself awake.

Abby was on her feet and squeezing Tony's hand at the first sign of movement from him. "Tony?" she called to him softly.

Tony heard her voice and several seconds later his right eye flitted open. It took a few more seconds for his vision to clear enough to recognize the owner of the voice.

"H-Abby," he whispered. He watched as a smile spread across her face and she squeezed his hand again. This time he squeezed back ever so slightly and did his best to smile back at her. He saw something move behind her and his eye tried to refocus on it, causing a wave of nausea to spread over him. He quickly closed his eyes again and fought back the urge to vomit. When he opened his eyes he saw the man standing next to Abby, worry openly displayed on his features.

"Gibbs?" He couldn't remember a single time when his boss had shown such concern for him, at least outwardly. Tony knew Gibbs cared about him; he'd just never seen him show it.

"Welcome back, DiNozzo," Gibbs said softly before the worry on his face was replaced with the unemotional mask he usually wore when working a case. It was Tony's signal that the pleasantries were over and the questioning was about to begin.

"Ducky told us you remembered being run off the road," Gibbs said. "Do you remember what happened after that?

Tony closed his eyes and nodded once. But, before answering, he turned to Ducky and asked for something to drink. Of course Ducky had anticipated the need and was already leaning in over the bed with a cup. He placed the straw in Tony's mouth and held it there while the young man took a sip of water. When he was finished Tony thanked the doctor and closed his eyes again, summoning the memories. Opening his eyes he began to recount the events of the past twenty-four hours or so.

"I remember being in the back of a car," he hesitated, "maybe an SUV." He continued haltingly. "There were two guys," he stared at the ceiling. "Big guys. Big, big guys," he whispered.

Gibbs nodded, "Salvatore Iapalucci and Joey Santoro. We know." Tony looked questioningly over at him.

"We found Iapalucci's fingerprints in your car and we found a knife with Santoro's fingerprints and your blood on it in the park where…where we found you," Gibbs informed him.

When Tony had been silent for a few moments Gibbs prodded him. "Do you remember anything about where they took you, what they wanted from you?" he asked gently. He didn't want to cause his friend any more pain, but they needed more information if they were going to catch Iapalucci and Santoro.

Tony took as deep a breath as his broken ribs would allow and went on. "They took me to a warehouse. I don't know where. It was a ways away, though. I think we were on the expressway for a while before I passed out again. When I came to, I was in a room with windows high up on one wall and one door. They were asking me what we knew about Mercury; I think they're the ones who stole it. They had me tied to a chair and they... they…" he stopped and closed his eyes again as wave after wave of memory crashed into his head, threatening to flood his brain. Memories of Sal with the baseball bat, of Joey with the knife and the cigars. And finally memories of the man in the shadows, the familiar aroma of the cigars and the disembodied voice that brought fear and loathing.

The three standing beside the bed watched as Tony first stiffened and then started to shake from head to toe. Their hearts ached for their friend as they knew he was probably reliving the torture he'd endured. Abby squeezed his hand again, letting him know he wasn't alone.

Finally the memories subsided and he forced himself to continue. "I managed to work the ropes around my wrists loose and I was able to get out one of the windows. I remember there was water nearby. And there was a gravel road and across from that were some trees. By then it was dark; I don't know what time exactly. I made it to the trees and started moving away from the water until I made it to a road." He paused.

"Did you see a sign on the building, something with a name, anything?" Gibbs asked.

Tony thought for a moment and then looked at him. "I remember..." he hesitated, unsure of the memory. "I remember a wharf?… I think…" he shook his head. "I'm sorry, boss. I don't remember."

The others could see he was getting frustrated. "Don't worry, Tony," Ducky told him. "It will come back to you in time."

Tony sighed. "I remember a sign by the road that pointed back to the warehouse," he said.

"Do you remember what the sign said?" asked Gibbs.

DiNozzo closed his eyes again, trying hard to remember. "I could only see part of it," he said. "It was Mid-At… Mid-… Mid-something. I just… I don't remember."

Gibbs nodded. "That's okay, Tony," he said. "Do you remember seeing any kind of picture or logo on the sign or a street sign?"

Tony thought about it for a moment. "There was a picture of something on the sign for the warehouse," he said. "I think it was a fish, maybe a lobster." He looked apologetically at his boss. "I'm sorry, Boss," he said, "I just don't remember."

Again Gibbs nodded. "Okay. What happened next?" he asked.

Tony sighed. "I just kept moving. Away from the warehouse. I don't think I got very far, though. I was tired and dizzy and I kept stumbling, felt like I was drunk. I remember falling down. There was gravel. I think I was in a parking lot or something." He paused again, trying to remember.

"That's the last thing I remember. I think they must've found me again and they must've taken me back to the warehouse." He looked back at Gibbs. "I don't remember what happened after that. The next thing I remember is waking up here and seeing Ducky."

Gibbs leaned forward and laid his hand lightly on Tony's head. "That's a good job, Tony," he said. "You get some rest. We'll find these bastards," he promised.

He left Abby and Ducky at the hospital and made his way back to the Navy Yard, arriving just after Ziva and McGee. After listening to their report – they'd turned up nothing to suggest any activity in the seemingly abandoned warehouse – he put them to work locating the company with Mid- in the name and a warehouse somewhere near a wharf. It didn't take long for McGee to locate the Mid-Atlantic Seafood Company among JMD Industries holdings. A further check revealed that the company owned a warehouse at 1796 Wharf Road, Finches Point Industrial Park. Within an hour they had another search warrant and another hour-and-a-half after that, they had their tactical teams organized and were heading back to Baltimore.

This time the search was a bit more fruitful. When they stormed the warehouse they found a 2006 Cadillac Escalade SUV with bloodstains on the carpet in the cargo area. They also found a small room with high windows and a single door containing a table and chair, just as DiNozzo had described it. The chair still had ropes tied to it. Left on the table was a bloody baseball bat, an ashtray and a half-smoked cigar. On the floor near the chair were several droplets of blood. There was, however, no sign of Iapalucci or Santoro.

Gibbs stewed all the while as they gathered up the blood evidence, rope, bat, ashtray and cigar. He'd hoped to find the two dirtbags who'd hurt DiNozzo, his frustration level rising, he spent the time barking orders and snapping at just about everyone who approached. Leaving the other NCIS and FBI teams to finish pulling fingerprints and arrange to tow the SUV back to NCIS and continue searching the area for DiNozzo's torturers, Gibbs and his team started back to Washington, D.C.

Getting into the car, the team leader tossed his cell phone to Ziva who sat beside him. "Call Abby," he barked. "We'll be back at NCIS in about an hour. I want her there to process the evidence."

A little over an hour later, they arrived at NCIS headquarters. Gibbs dropped off the evidence along with a Caf-Pow! to Abby in her lab then headed to the director's office to update her on the case.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Thanks to all who have read this and especially to those who have reviewed or PM'ed me. Your encouragement is helping me get this back on track. Here's Chapter 9; personally, I'm not sure this is my best and I'm still working on getting the plot back to where I intended and need it to be, but I wanted to get this posted. Let me know what you think. Thanks again! - **_Psy_**

* * *

Gibbs sent Ziva and McGee home to rest and change while he sat at his desk writing up his report of what they'd found in Baltimore and where they stood with the rest of the case. He knew he was running out of time to find PFC Rifken and Mercury. Although they'd been focused the last couple of days on finding DiNozzo and his kidnappers, he hadn't forgotten what had started it all. And, he knew Director Shepard was going to want answers - sooner rather than later.

He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. He was exhausted. They'd been going non-stop for nearly 48 hours straight, ever since they'd found DiNozzo's car, and it was beginning to take its toll. It was why he'd sent the others home for a few hours. Gibbs knew he needed to take a break as well. He'd already dropped off Abby's Caf-Pow! to her in her lab and he knew she had started processing everything they'd found thus far. She would crash out on the futon in her office while her 'army' of machines did their work, probably soon.

Shaking the cobwebs out of his eyes, he made up his mind. As soon as he was finished with his report he saved it and turned off his computer, grabbed his coat and started to leave the squad room, stopping only briefly to glance down at his injured agent's desk before he continued to the elevator and down to the first floor and the parking lot out front.

Gibbs drove at his usual pace and arrived home in record time. After turning on the coffee maker, he took a quick shower and changed into some clean clothes. Making his way back into the kitchen, he grabbed a travel mug from the cabinet and filled it with the hot, dark liquid that would keep him awake at least until he made it to the hospital. Then, almost as an afterthought, he grabbed another travel mug and filled it too before getting back into his car.

He found Dr. Mallard dozing in the chair beside the bed. He set the mugs on the small table in the room and gently nudged the good doctor. "Duck," he said.

The older man shook himself awake and looked up into the blue eyes of his friend. "Jethro," he admonished as he took in the lines of worry and exhaustion that had carved themselves into the other man's face. "You look awful! You really should take better care of yourself. You need to rest!"

"I know, Duck," Gibbs answered. "I know. Looks like you could use some sleep in a comfortable bed yourself." He took his friend's elbow and helped him out of the chair. "Why don't you go home; get some sleep?" He looked pointedly at the older man. "You've been here nearly 24 hours straight."

"Oh my!" exclaimed Ducky. "Has it really been that long?" He looked at his watch. "I have been here quite a long time, haven't I?" he said just before being overtaken by a rather large yawn. He noticed the two mugs on the table. "I take it you've brought me some of your special brew to see that I make it home?" A hint of a smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Gibbs handed him one of the mugs. "Thought you could use it," he said with a nod.

Ducky caught one whiff of the strong scent and was instantly awake. "While I normally prefer tea, I think this will be just the ticket to wake me up enough to drive," he smiled up at the former Marine. "Thank you, Jethro."

Gibbs then inquired as to DiNozzo's condition and was informed that there had been no significant change in the last several hours. The injured man had not woken up since Gibbs and Abby had been there, though he had occasionally stirred. As a result, Ducky had been able to sleep, albeit uncomfortably, through most of the night. Another CT scan was not scheduled for another day or so, but according to the neurologist, it appeared that the swelling in Tony's brain was continuing to diminish, though not quite as quickly as they had hoped. Still, the fact that he'd been able to give them as much detail as he had left them both hopeful that the younger man would come through his ordeal relatively unscathed. Having finished his report, Doctor Mallard bid his friend goodnight and headed home for some much needed rest.

Gibbs quietly pulled the other chair over and positioned it facing the one Ducky had just vacated. He sat down in the chair at the head of the bed and placed his feet on the other one, settling in for a few hours of dozing. It was as much sleep as he would get anywhere else, he reasoned. He never could seem to sleep when one of his agents was hurt anyway. Soon, the steady beeping of the machines lulled him into a light doze. Some time after, a nurse came in to check on DiNozzo and seeing Gibbs asleep on the two chairs she left and came back a few minutes later with a blanket that she placed over the silver-haired man. She also placed a pillow behind his head. Smiling, she turned to regard the young man in the bed. She leaned over the rail and spoke softly into his ear.

"You're a lucky man to have such a caring family," she said. "You grandfather was here all day and all night and now your father's here." She smiled again. She'd known some patients whose families hadn't visited them even on their deathbeds. "You must be pretty special. They don't want you to be alone," she said, patting his arm before leaving the room.

* * *

Director Jenny Shepard stepped out of the elevator and was immediately assaulted by the loud music coming from the forensics lab. Shaking her head wondering how anyone could think with that pounding noise, she entered the lab, walked over to the office and turned down the CD player. Almost instantly, Abby Sciuto spun around from her workbench.

"Gibbs!" she started to yell. "Oh, Director, it's you," she said quietly, a sheepish smile stretching across her face. "I thought you were the boss man." Her eyes flicked down to the huge cup in the director's hand.

"I thought you could use this," Jenny said as she placed the cup on the workbench. She surveyed the lab taking note of all the evidence piled everywhere. "How's it going?" she asked pointedly.

"Well," Abby hedged a bit. "It could be going better. I mean there's just so much stuff to process. But, I'll get through it!" she vowed. "I'm doing my very best work here. I have to; it's for Tony!" she told the director.

"I know, Abby" Jenny patted her arm. "I was thinking of getting you an assistant to help out with all of this."

"What? An assistant?!" Thoughts of her last evil assistant flashed through Abby's mind. "No! I don't need one. Like I said, I'll get through all this stuff!"

The director just stared at her. "Abby, you have evidence from at least three crime scenes down here. You're running fingerprints, DNA and God knows what else on all of this. And when's the last time you slept?" Jenny didn't want to badger the poor girl, but she was clearly overwhelmed and exhausted.

"I dozed for like a whole hour at the hospital!" Abby assured her. "I'm good. I just need a little caffeine and I am up and at 'em!" With that she grabbed the Caf-Pow! off the workbench and took a long drink. Nodding her head and smiling, she tried to convince the director.

"All right, Abby," Jenny relented. "I'll hold off on the assistant for now. But, maybe I can send Ducky's assistant to help you out, would that work for you?" she asked.

"Jimmy Palmer? Yeah, he's okay." Abby agreed, figuring Palmer would be better than anyone else the director might have in mind. "But, isn't he covering for Ducky while he's at the hospital?" she asked.

"He and Dr. Mallard finished the autopsy for Agent Balboa's team yesterday. There haven't been any other bodies brought in since." The director informed her. "Okay then, it's settled. I'll have Palmer come in and give you a hand. Now," Jenny again gave her a pointed look. "Have you got anything on the DNA found at Rifken's apartment?" she asked.

Abby glanced down at her hands for a moment. "Rifken…Rifken…oh! The guy who disappeared from Norfolk! Right! Um..okay…" She thought for a moment while she spun all the way around as if looking for something. "That's right, we found blood evidence," she said as she turned back to her computer. "I was able to get some DNA from the blood."

She turned back and said sheepishly, "I almost forgot about it because of Tony."

"That's okay, Abby," the director assured her. "What did you find?"

"Um, well, some of the blood was definitely Rifken's," she answered, "but, not all of it. There was some that came back unidentified. I've run it through AFIS and the FBI database, but I haven't been able to come up with anything on it."

The director nodded her understanding. "All right, Abby. Keep working on it." She took another survey of the lab before turning to leave. "And I'll send Palmer over right away."

"Thank you, Director!" Abby called out after her. Taking another long drag from the straw in the huge cup she sighed and got back to work.

About forty minutes later, Jimmy Palmer stepped into the forensics lab to find Abby whirling between her mass spectrometer, computer and another machine he didn't recognize.

"Hi, Abby!" he called, smiling. "Director Shepard said you could use some help up here," he added as he took in the vast amount of evidence that seemed to cover every horizontal surface.

"Wow! You sure do have a lot of evidence," he said.

Abby stopped to face him, her shoulders slumping just a bit. "You're not kidding there, Jimbo," she replied. She then proceeded to explain which groups of evidence had already been processed, which were in the process of being processed and which had yet to be looked at, including which machines were currently running tests on which pieces of evidence. She'd actually been able to keep the evidence from the three crime scenes separated and organized and the young M.E.'s assistant was impressed.

"Okay, then," he looked at the exhausted Goth, "what's the first priority?" he asked.

"That's a good question," replied Abby. "I've been multi-tasking quite a bit, running tests that usually take a lot of time like DNA and fingerprint analysis through the mass spec and computers and doing other things while waiting for the results." She turned to one set of evidence boxes on the table behind her workbench. "This is everything Tony and McGee brought back from Rifken's apartment. I've been running the DNA from some of the blood found there against AFIS and the FBI databases, but didn't come up with anything. All of the fingerprints are Rifken's, but the rest of the DNA didn't match anything in AFIS or the FBI. And, looking at the photos, it doesn't look like anything was wiped clean either. I mean, why would you wipe for fingerprints and not blood, right? There was someone else in that apartment, but I have no idea who," she explained.

They decided that the priority was determining whose blood was found in Rifken's apartment. Since she'd already run them against the two biggest databases and come up dry, they tried brainstorming ideas of where to look next.

"I guess I'm not such a great assistant when it comes to forensics, huh?" asked Jimmy when they couldn't come up with anything.

"Hey, at least you're not trying to frame Tony for murder!" was Abby's response. Then she stood up and pointed at her friend. "That's it!" she exclaimed as she spun around and started tapping furiously on her keyboard.

Palmer was confused. "What's it?"

"That psycho, Chip!" Abby replied. "I tracked him down starting with the severed legs he planted at Quantico. I identified the legs through the national bone marrow transplant database," she explained.

"Maybe I can match the DNA to a bone marrow donor like I did that time." Abby knew it was a long shot, but was determined to try. She pulled up the database and set the search parameters. She then turned back to her helper.

"While that's running, let's see what we can find from what Ziva and McGee brought back from Baltimore." And with that the two set to work.

* * *

10:00AM found Ziva and McGee back at their desks typing up their reports detailing what they'd found in the Baltimore warehouse. Every so often they'd glance over to the empty desks of their boss and senior field agent and occasionally their glances would meet for a moment before each turned their eyes back to their own desks. The squad room was eerily silent without the barking orders of their team lead or the incessant chattering of the senior agent. Usually they found his inane comments annoying, but they'd found themselves oddly bereft at its absence. With another glance around the squad room, they nodded to each other, silently agreeing to finish up their reports as quickly as possible so they could get to the hospital and see their friend.

The two agents found themselves standing outside their friend's room just over an hour later, though both were reluctant to step inside. Through the door they could see their boss sitting next to the bed, keeping a watchful eye on his second. Every so often, the senior agent would stir slightly causing the silver-haired man to sit a little straighter in the chair and peer closely at the younger man's face, sometimes grasping his agent's hand, hoping the injured man would awaken.

"All that's missing is the blue lights," muttered McGee.

"Blue lights?" Ziva asked, glancing over at him.

Tim turned his head to face her. "When Tony was infected with pneumonic plague, they kept him in an isolation unit with glass walls, negative air pressure and blue lights," he explained before turning back to look into the room again. "I don't think I'll ever forget how sick he looked under those lights."

Next to him, Ziva nodded, but couldn't imagine it.

"And, listening to him cough, that was the worst," he continued. "You know, you hear the phrase 'coughing up a lung' and you sort of chuckle at it. But, back then it really sounded like he might just do that." He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the memory.

"I do not believe I have ever seen Tony so still and so quiet," Ziva remarked. "It does not seem natural for him."

"Yeah," agreed her partner softly as he tried to reconcile the frenetic man he knew with the still and silent one in the hospital bed.

The two agents had been standing outside the hospital room for several minutes when their partner began stirring again. Inside the room Leroy Jethro Gibbs once again leaned forward and grasped the injured man's hand. As DiNozzo continued to waken, Ziva and McGee joined their boss, encouraging their friend to wake up. His stirring increased and he started murmuring softly until his eyes suddenly shot open as he bolted upright with a strangled cry.

"No!"


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N**: The usual disclaimers apply. I don't own NCIS, its characters, or much of anything, really.

Thanks to everyone for your patience with this. I have no plans to abandon it, I assure you. Hopefully, it will continue for the most part to meet with your approval.

**BnBfanatic**: You were right on both counts; initially, I may have gone overboard with Tony's injuries. That said, he **is** a remarkably resilient character and has beaten the odds on many occasions, so I'm just going to try to move things along and hope you all don't hold it against me if his recovery seems a bit miraculous.

My goal is to finish this by January 11th so it will remain more or less in canon. Once Tony's dad shows up on the 12th, all bets are off. I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter, but I wanted to get it posted so I can move on to the next. Not much action in this one. Then again, not every case can be solved in 42 minutes, right?! ;)

On to the story…

* * *

Previously on NCIS:

_The two agents had been standing outside the hospital room for several minutes when their partner began stirring again. Inside the room, Leroy Jethro Gibbs once again leaned forward and grasped the injured man's hand. As DiNozzo continued to waken, Ziva and McGee joined their boss, encouraging their friend to wake up. His stirring increased and he started murmuring softly until his eyes suddenly shot open as he bolted upright with a strangled cry._

"_No!"_

* * *

Gibbs stood and placed his left hand on DiNozzo's shoulder, gently pressing the younger man back to a prone position, all the while speaking softly as he would to a frightened animal in an attempt to calm his senior agent. The beeping heart monitor sounded as if it was about to explode.

"Easy, Tony," he whispered into his friend's ear, his eyes never leaving the other man's and his right hand continuing to grip his senior agent's.

DiNozzo blinked wildly, his eyes scanning everything around him trying to determine where he was at that moment. He'd expected to be in the warehouse, the air thick with cigar smoke and that haunting voice he knew so well. Slowly, as his brain caught up with what his eyes and ears were telling it, his heart rate slowed and he appeared to recognize his current surroundings.

"Boss?" he asked haltingly. He felt the pressure of his mentor's hands on his hand and shoulder and he turned to look at the former Marine. Blue eyes locked with green and the reassurance Tony saw in them had the desired effect. DiNozzo sank back into the pillows, grateful that the hands he felt stayed where they were. He closed his eyes for a few more moments until his breathing began to slow as well. When it did, he opened his good eye and looked around the room once again. Seeing his two partners standing next to Gibbs he tried to smile.

"Hey, Ziva, Probie," he muttered. They smiled back at him, thankful that he at least recognized them. They knew he'd suffered enough concussions over the years that it was not something to be taken for granted. It seemed every time they turned around he was getting hit in the head and not just by their boss.

Ziva was the first to answer. "Hello, Tony. I am glad to see you are awake. We have been worried about you," she told him.

"Yeah," McGee nodded. "You gotta quit getting yourself kidnapped, man. I'm not sure any of us can take much more of Abby when you're hurt or missing."

Tony smiled at the sarcasm. He knew Tim was almost as put off by the touchy-feely stuff as he was and he recognized the younger man's statement for the deflection it was. Tony didn't really need to hear McGee come out and say just how relieved he was. It was written all over his face anyway. The kid couldn't stop smiling, though it did seem to wane a bit as he took in all the bruising, bandages and tubes covering the senior agent.

"Where is Abby?" Tony asked.

McGee shifted from one foot to the other. "She's back at NCIS processing everything we found at the warehouse."

Tony focused his good eye somewhere behind McGee, the tight smile still plastered on his face. After a moment, he shivered slightly as his boss's hand left his shoulder and he turned to the older man again. He flinched a bit as he saw Gibbs' hand reaching for his head. He knew he deserved a good head slap for allowing himself to be taken yet again. Rather than hitting him, though, the hand instead came to rest gently on his head.

Ziva and McGee glanced at each other; they both knew that while Abby was Gibbs' favorite, Tony seemed to take a close second. Whenever Tony was hurt, Gibbs would make an extra effort to show the senior agent that he cared. Oh, he'd try to cover it up with a growl, a bark or even a head slap, but that was only once the younger man was back on his feet. Gibbs always seemed to go into what Tony and Abby described as 'Papa Smurf' or 'Papa Bear' mode when any of his team was hurt. But, he seemed to take it up a notch whenever it was Tony or Abby.

Gibbs had noticed the tension still clinging to his agent and knew that whatever had startled the younger man back to consciousness was still just below the surface, threatening to overwhelm him.

"You okay, DiNozzo?" he asked in that same soft, calming voice.

Tony nodded his head, but his gaze shifted to his feet at the end of the bed as his smile disappeared. Gibbs' thumb began softly massaging the senior agent's brow.

"You sure?" he asked, still looking pointedly at the injured man, making no effort to hide his concern. "You didn't look okay when you woke up. You remember something?"

Tony hesitated only seconds before shaking his head; his good eye remained fixed on the foot of the bed, refusing to look anywhere else. He knew his boss could see right through his denial, but there was no way he could talk about it now. Hell, he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to talk about it.

He was saved from further contemplation when a nurse came into the room followed by Dr. Morris.

"Good morning, Agent Gibbs," the doctor greeted the silver-haired man who reluctantly stepped back from the bed to allow him access.

"Ah, you're awake," Dr. Morris smiled down at his patient. "That's good. Now if you could answer a few questions for me, we'll be better able to assess your condition."

He then proceeded to ask the injured man the usual questions to determine just how severe a concussion he'd suffered. DiNozzo dutifully answered all of them, only faltering when it came to what the current date and day of the week it was. Considering the fact that he'd had no idea how long he'd been held captive or how long he'd been unconscious, it came as no surprise that he had no clue what day it was.

"Well, there seems to be no deficiency in speech or long-term memory," Dr. Morris stated as he notated the medical chart he held. He glanced over his shoulder at Gibbs. "Both good signs," he said. Turning back to his patient, he asked, "What's the last thing you remember?"

Tony thought for a moment before answering. "I remember being in a warehouse. I was tied to a chair and two guys were beating the crap out of me."

"Do you remember waking up at all?" the doctor asked.

Again, Tony took a moment before answering. "I think so. I remember waking up in the warehouse."

"Do remember waking up any other time?" asked Dr. Morris.

Tony thought about it. He seemed to recall hearing voices and he thought he might have answered them. But, everything was so muddled in his mind, he couldn't be sure. He shook his head.

"Everything's all jumbled," he replied. "I'm not sure."

"All right, Agent DiNozzo," Dr. Morris encouraged. "Do you remember anything else?" he asked.

Tony shook his head. "Not really," he replied. "I think I remember Gibbs asking me questions… about the warehouse, I think. But I don't really remember."

The doctor nodded. "That's okay," he said. "Your memory will likely be a bit fuzzy due to your injuries and the medication you were on when you woke up." He turned to Gibbs and explained that all in all, despite the brain swelling, he seemed to have come through it reasonably well. Dr. Morris reminded them of the CT scan scheduled for that afternoon and explained that they would be testing DiNozzo's motor skills as well before making any determination regarding his prognosis. He made some adjustments to the medication, updated Tony's chart, and after checking all the monitors and the IV, he and the nurse left the room.

Gibbs decided he needed more coffee and after making sure DiNozzo was okay with it, he left McGee and Ziva alone to visit with their partner for a while. They updated Tony as much as they could about the case and tried to get him to reveal any other memories he had about who had tortured him. Both of them got the feeling that Tony was holding back on something, but they couldn't get him to open up about it. By the time Gibbs returned, Tony had fallen back asleep and they told the lead agent about their suspicion.

"Yeah, I know," Gibbs said after hearing his junior investigator's beliefs that their partner was withholding something. His gut was telling him the same thing. He gazed at his senior agent, once again wondering what it was that had startled the young man to the point of consciousness and why the younger man didn't want to talk about it. His gut told him that it had something to do with who had kidnapped Tony. But, if so, why wouldn't DiNozzo talk about it. Was he protecting someone? And why? Those men had nearly killed him. It didn't make sense that Tony would protect one of them. Gibbs wondered if Tony knew someone who was involved in the case. If it was someone close to him, he could see Tony wanting to protect them. But, if it was someone close to him, why would they want to torture him? Gibbs shook his head. With any luck, Abby would get some fingerprints or a DNA match that would render his agent's reticence moot.

Ziva and McGee returned to NCIS to go back over everything they had, making sure that they hadn't missed anything. They checked in with Abby only to learn that she'd come up empty on the blood found at Rifken's apartment. She was now running fingerprints and DNA analysis on the items brought back from Baltimore. So far, she'd found fingerprints and DNA matching Joey Santoro and Sal Iapalucci, no surprises there, and no one else. But, she still had a number of items left to analyze, so it was still possible she might find something.

The day dragged on relentlessly, the junior members of Team Gibbs working feverishly to find anything that would help them locate Rifken, Santoro, Iapalucci or the missile guidance system. Every so often, someone from one of the other investigative teams or some other departments would stop by and inquire about Tony's condition. The other senior field agents in the office all volunteered to help out whatever way they could even on their own time to help get the bastards who had hurt DiNozzo. Pretty much everyone in the office knew Tony, but Ziva and McGee were a bit surprised at the number of people willing to come to his aid. With his sometimes annoying and juvenile behavior, they figured others would have been at the very least indifferent that Tony was out of commission for a while. They knew why _they_ would do anything to protect or avenge their friend; they just didn't think so many others would feel the same way.

Gibbs strode into the squad room shortly after 1900 hours to find Ziva and McGee sitting at their desks still searching for any sign of a lead. They all knew time was running out for PFC Rifken if something had happened to him. They also knew that the longer it took them to track down the missing guidance system component, the more likely it would end up in the wrong hands. However, They still could find nothing to indicate that anyone connected to the Mercury project, including PO Benson, PFC Rifken or anyone else had contacted a buyer for it.

They'd had BOLO's out on Rifken, Santoro and Iapalucci for days with no hits. If they didn't come up with something soon, this investigation would grind to a halt and they'd be forced to put it on the back burner, eventually to investigate it as a cold case. None of them wanted to see that happen.

"McGee!" Gibbs barked, "Sit rep."

The young man sighed, "Well, boss," he said, "we have no hits on any of the BOLO's on Rifken, Santoro or Iapalucci. We have no new leads on any of them; there's been no activity on any of their credit cards or ATM usage." He sighed. "Basically, we have nothing, boss." He stared dejectedly at his computer.

"Ziva," Gibbs turned to the Mossad officer, eyebrows arched in inquiry.

"I have nothing as well," she shook her head.

A low growl started in the team leader's throat. "That's not good enough!" His eyes flashed a fury they'd only seen a few times before. He glared at each of them in turn.

McGee cowered before turning once again to his computer. "I'm going to put a BOLO out on Rifken's car and talk to everyone who knew him. Maybe his family or friends know where he is."

Ziva had picked up her phone as her partner had spoken. "I will check with my contacts, see if any of them have heard of a missile system being put up for auction."

Satisfied that his team was working, Gibbs stalked out of the squad room. Five minutes later, he stepped out of the elevator outside the forensics lab. He was surprised to find Palmer inside with Abby going through evidence. The field agent stepped up to the workbench.

"Abby," he began, but was cut off before he could continue.

"Gibbs!" Abby exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I don't have anything for you yet." She tilted her head as she regarded him through narrowed eyes for a brief moment. "Wait, is your gut telling you something?" she asked. She looked around at her computers, mass spectrometer and the various other devices at her disposal, each of which was analyzing some piece of evidence. She waited in anticipation for one of them to give the telltale beep that signaled a match of whatever it was looking for. When no signal was forthcoming, her shoulders slumped and she turned back to her silver-haired fox. Shaking her head she said, "Nope. Sorry, Gibbs. Nothing yet."

"Don't worry, Abby," Palmer offered. "We'll find something."

Changing tack Abby asked, "How's Tony?"

Gibbs regarded her silently before replying, "He woke up again for a little while. And, he woke up a second time about two hours ago. Each time he seems to stay awake a little bit longer than the last."

"That's good, Gibbs! Did he say anything? Did he remember anything else?" Abby interjected. "What did the doctor say? He's going to be okay, isn't he? I mean, of course he's gonna be okay; this is Tony we're talking about. He'll be fine," she nodded her head trying to convince herself. Looking up into Gibbs eyes she asked in a small voice, "He is gonna be okay, right?"

Gibbs took her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. "The doctor said it's still too soon to tell for sure; they have more tests to do. But, so far, it looks like he'll be okay. His long-term memory seems to be fine and he's talking. He remembered me asking him about the warehouse," it wasn't a complete lie, he thought to himself, "so his short-term memory seems pretty good so far, too."

"Have they tested his motor functions yet?" Palmer asked. "I...ah... I spoke with Doctor Mallard and he said that the motor skills test may be the most telling since that's where most of the swelling was."

The agent shook his head. "Ducky was on his way over there when I left. As soon as Tony wakes up again they'll do the tests and run another CT scan. Ducky wanted to be there when they did the tests.

"Have you processed all the evidence from the warehouse yet?" he asked.

Abby sighed. "Still working on it." She gestured to the mass spec. "I'm trying to get the exact composition of the cigar you guys found. I figure if I can get that, I might be able to trace where it was made and sold and from there, maybe we can find out who bought it." She looked back at Gibbs. "It's a long shot, but at this point I'll try anything."

"What about DNA?" asked the team lead. "Were you able to get any from the cigar?"

The Goth nodded. "Oh, yeah. There was a trace of saliva on it and I was able to get DNA from that. I'm running it through AFIS right now. As soon as I get anything, I'll let you know."

Gibbs nodded his approval. "Not just the DNA, Abs. You get anything at all..."

"I'll call," she replied. "Unless, of course, you show up before I can," she smirked at him as he turned and started out the door.

Gibbs made his way back to his desk. His two junior team members were still working, trying to find any kind of lead. He sat down and started going through everything himself, hoping he would find something they'd missed.

Down in the lab the computer running the search of the AFIS database for a DNA match beeped. Abby silently counted to ten before turning toward the lab door, half expecting Gibbs to walk through it again. When he didn't she turned back to the computer and brought up the search window.

"Damn it!" Abby shouted, her shoulders slumping in defeat. She looked over at Palmer. "Nothing in AFIS," she said.

Jimmy Palmer walked over her and squeezed the Goth's arms. "Abby, we're going to find something. I know it," he told her.

Abby just shook her head dejectedly. "When, Jimmy?!" She felt like crying. "I mean, here Tony's in the hospital and we can't find _anything _that'll help us get those bastards who put him there."

The mood back up on the squad room was just as bleak. Ziva's contacts had reported hearing no chatter that could be remotely construed as being related to the missing weapon system. There were still no hits on any of the BOLOs they'd put out and McGee had not been able to reach PFC Rifken's family. After hearing that Abby had fared no better, Gibbs ordered them all home to rest. The lack of viable leads was frustrating and left them all feeling drained and defeated. Perhaps with some rest they'd be able to start fresh again first thing in the morning.

The two junior agents slowly closed up their desks and made their way to the elevators, muttering their goodbyes as they exited the bullpen. Gibbs rubbed a hand over his tired eyes before he, too, grabbed his sig and locked up his desk. He called Ducky as he walked to the elevator, hoping for better news on that front. The M.E. informed him that the tests had gone well, all things considered, but would not elaborate, only saying that the prognosis was as good as could be expected. He assured the lead agent that he would stay with DiNozzo for the time being and rather strongly suggested the investigator go home and get some much-needed sleep. For once, Gibbs didn't argue. He just didn't have the energy.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note**: The usual disclaimers still apply: I don't own NCIS or its characters. If I did, it wouldn't have taken three years to get rid of Director Shepard (and it wouldn't have been Tony's fault) and the whole Jeanne Benoit debacle would have been avoided altogether.

I don't have a background in medicine or law enforcement, so if I've made any mistakes with regard to Tony's injuries, his recovery or anything else, please keep in mind that it is fiction and I hope you'll continue to willingly suspend your disbelief for the duration.

That said, I have to thank **Paw Print Pajamas** for pointing out that AFIS is only used for fingerprints and CODIS is actually used for DNA. I'll try to remember that.

* * *

The third floor squad room of NCIS headquarters was just beginning to come to life. It was 0700 hours Monday and agents and other personnel had been filtering in for about fifteen minutes or so. The elevator dinged and Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs stepped out carrying a tray containing one enormous plastic cup and three smaller ones. He set the tray on his desk and took out two of the smaller cups, placing one on each of his junior agents' desks and then picked up the last two cups before heading toward the back of the squad room and the elevator that would take him to the forensics lab.

Abby Sciuto was just turning on her "babies," her back to the door as Gibbs walked into the lab. It was one of the few times the head splitting techno-noise she called music wasn't pounding throughout the space. The lead agent placed the larger cup on the workbench just as the forensic scientist turned around.

"Gibbs!" gasped Abby as her hands came up in surprise. "You really need to announce yourself or something when you enter a room," she scolded him. Her eyes moved to her left and she noticed what he'd put on the bench.

"Ooh! My first Caf-Pow! of the day," she gave him a small smile and grabbed it with both hands, taking a long gulp of the precious liquid. Setting it back down on the workbench, she regarded the man in front of her. Though he looked a bit more rested than he had all weekend, she could still see the fine lines of stress on his face. Of course, she knew exactly why he was stressed. Tony DiNozzo lay in a hospital bed after having been run off the road, kidnapped and tortured. And while they had been able to identify the men who had hurt Tony, they hadn't found them yet. Not to mention the fact that they had yet to catch the bad guys who had killed the Petty Officer now residing in Ducky's autopsy freezer or find the missile guidance system component that had gone missing.

Abby could relate to the boss man's stress. She'd been processing evidence from three different crime scenes all weekend and they were still no closer to solving any of the crimes. Abby tilted her head and frowned. "But, Gibbs," she said, "I didn't find anything for you yesterday."

Gibbs leaned in to kiss her gently on the cheek. "You will, Abs," he said. "You will." And, with that, he turned and walked back out the door.

When he got back to the squad room both Ziva and McGee were at their desks, once again going through everything they'd found so far. They were determined to find something they could use.

McGee's phone rang out just as the team leader took his seat. Barely looking up from his computer, he picked up the phone. "McGee," he said into the handset. "Mrs. Rifken," he said with surprise. Gibbs eyes snapped up and fixed on the young agent.

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you for returning my call," he said. "Mrs. Rifken, we're trying to locate your son, David. Have you seen or spoken to him since last Thursday?" McGee was quiet as she answered. "I see. Did he say where he was going? Well, do you know if David was traveling with anyone?" Again, he waited as the woman answered. "Thank you, Mrs. Rifken. Will you be at this number if we need to contact you again? Good. Thank you."

McGee hung up the phone and looked up at his boss. "David Rifken called his mother on his cell phone on Friday. He wouldn't say where he was or where he was going, but he told her he was going away for a couple of weeks with his girlfriend." The young agent looked at his notes. "A Maggie Donaldson," he added. "I've got a cell phone number for her."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Gibbs barked. "Call her! Better yet, **find** her!"

"On it, Boss," McGee picked up his phone again and dialed the number PFC Rifken's mother had given him. The call went straight to voicemail and both men shared a look of frustration as McGee left a message requesting a callback. Gibbs stood and pointed to the younger man as he hung up the phone.

"Check her cell phone records, credit cards, bank records, whatever you can find," Gibbs ordered. He glanced up at the balcony above to see Director Shepard watching them. Making his way to the stairs he growled, "I want this case resolved!"

An hour later Gibbs returned from his conference with the director feeling none too happy. She'd informed him in no uncertain terms that with DiNozzo recuperating, the focus of the investigation had to be locating the missile component and anyone involved in its theft. It wasn't anything Gibbs didn't already know. He bristled at the director's implication that he was putting his personal feelings for his agent ahead of the agency's or the Navy's needs. Oh, he had no doubt that eventually he would find the men who had hurt DiNozzo and he'd exact his revenge. Marines took care of their own, after all. But, Iapalucci and Santoro were already tied to the disappearance of the Mercury chip, so pursuing them was a given. Didn't the director understand that?

Seeing Ziva and McGee both working to locate Maggie Donaldson and PFC Rifken, Gibbs breezed into the squad room, grabbed his coat from behind his desk and strode back out towards the elevator. Only an hour-and-a-half into his day and he needed to get out of there. He returned to NCIS twenty minutes later with another cup of coffee and headed straight down to Autopsy where he found the Medical Examiner sitting at his desk doing paperwork.

"Ah, Jethro," the elderly doctor greeted him. "I wondered when you would come see me."

"Well, Duck, you were a little vague on the phone last night," the field agent replied. "Care to fill in the details? Just how is DiNozzo doing?"

Dr. Donald Mallard put down the papers he was holding and looked up at the other man, trying to gauge his potential reaction. "Well, as I said, Tony's doing as well as to be expected," he said.

Gibbs sighed, frustrated at the obfuscation. "Duck," he said his tone a warning.

"Well, Jethro, you understand, he suffered yet another concussion," the doctor reminded him. "In addition to that, there are the broken bones in his face, arm and ribs, not to mention the numerous lacerations and burns," he paused to take a calming breath. "His recovery is likely to be rather slow, I'm afraid."

"Well, Ducky, what about the CT scan? What did it show?" Gibbs didn't bother trying to hide the frustration or fear in his voice. "Is there brain damage?" he asked.

"Yes, that is the $64,000 question, isn't it?" replied the good doctor. He sighed again, looking at his friend. "The CT scan revealed that while the swelling has gone down considerably, there is still a possibility that fine motor skills may be impaired."

Gibbs stared at him for a moment before asking, "How impaired? What about the motor skills test they gave him last night?"

Ducky regarded his friend. He knew Gibbs would not want it sugarcoated. "The tests last night were preliminary, much like the first CT scans. The doctors have only just begun assessing Tony's motor skills and reflexes," he said.

"He can push himself up and sit up on his own, hold up his head and limbs and he can hold smaller items, such as a cup or a straw in his hand. However, they did not assess how well he can manipulate those items. They listened to his speech as he answered questions and checked cognitive function. So far, there does not seem to be any real sign of impairment there. He's not slurring his words, he's alert and shows little to no confusion when speaking; all are good signs.

"They'll wait another day or so before they get him up and walking at which point they'll check his balance and coordination," he took a deep breath.

"The basic motor skills are there, Jethro. Only time will tell if there are any lingering effects. But, it will take time."

Gibbs nodded his thanks and turned to leave.

"He asked about you last night," the M.E. called after him. "Of course, I told him you'd be back to see him as soon as you can."

Waving his hand, the lead agent stepped into the waiting elevator, his thoughts still on his injured senior field agent.

In the forensics lab, Abby had begun a second and much wider DNA search of the national database. After four hours, the search completed, again with no hits. Frustrated, she pounded her fist on the workbench. "Ugh!" she growled before slumping down on the stool underneath her. Just then, Jimmy Palmer walked in.

"Hey, Abby!" he greeted her. Taking in the shoulders slumped in defeat he said, "I take it you still haven't found a match to the DNA?" he asked.

Abby turned to look at the young man. "No!" she replied, shaking her head angrily. "And, it's really starting to piss me off!" She sighed. "I've run it through CODIS and the FBI database. Nothing!"

She turned back to her computer. "This dirtbag orchestrated Tony's kidnapping. He hired the other two dirtbags to torture Tony and watched while he made sure Tony couldn't see him," she pointed out. "He's got to be one slippery bastard, but I'm gonna get him! There is no way his DNA's not in some database somewhere." Glancing back at Palmer she vowed, "Well, I'm gonna find it and I'm gonna get him!"

"What about that national bone marrow donor database you were talking about?" Palmer asked.

Abby pursed her lips before answering, "Came up empty with the blood from Rifken's apartment. Something tells me this dirtbag isn't exactly the sharing type. I doubt I'll get a match," she said shooting him another weary glance. "But, I guess it couldn't hurt to be thorough," she sighed.

Standing up again, Abby started tapping the keyboard, setting up yet another DNA search. With the searches running, she turned back to Palmer and suggested they get some lunch.

The searches were still running when they returned to the lab an hour later. Jimmy left to check in with Dr. Mallard in Autopsy while Abby went over the evidence already processed to make sure she hadn't missed anything. When she was sure she'd done everything she could think of, she sat down in front of her computer again and after turning on her boom box and starting the Android Lust CD, she surfed the web for a few minutes. She needed to take her mind off the evidence for a while and let her creative side loose a little. She was trolling through a few conspiracy theory forums she occasioned when she suddenly sat up, an inkling of excitement starting to take shape.

"Hmm," she thought for a moment. "If that really does exist, it has to be secure," she thought. She decided to go for it. After all, nothing else had worked and she sure didn't want to have to tell Gibbs that she'd come up dry a second day in a row. Soon Abby was typing away, intent on finding yet another database she could run the DNA against.

Unfortunately, finding a supposedly secret database on a secure server was harder than she thought. Even though she and McGee had hacked into FBI files before and she had an idea which subnets and protocols they used to protect their internal network, it wasn't a simple matter locating a specific server that was supposed to be hidden from prying fingers.

After a couple of hours of trying everything in her bag of tricks, Abby realized she was going to need some help with this. She called on the only person at NCIS who had hacked into more supposedly secure government computers than she had.

"McGee!" she exclaimed as soon as he picked up. "Get your ass down here now! I need your help."

"With what, Abs? I'm kinda busy right now. Gibbs has me looking through bank, credit card and cell phone records to track down David Rifken's girlfriend," he replied.

"Can't Ziva do that?" Abby whined. "I need you to help me hack into a super-secret FBI database."

"What? Why?"

"Well, I've run the DNA from the blood in Rifken's apartment and the cigar from the WOH against every other database and got nothing. There's supposed to be this secret database the FBI has for DNA collected from suspects and Persons of Interest in open cases. Since they haven't been convicted of anything and the DNA wasn't given voluntarily, they can't legally keep it in the national database," explained the Goth.

"WOH?" McGee was almost afraid to ask what the acronym stood for.

"Warehouse Of Horrors," Abby replied matter-of-factly.

The young man considered that an apt description. Still, he wasn't sure about this supposedly super-secret database.

"Where did you hear about this database?" he asked, "one of your 'conspiracy theory' forums?"

"McGee!" Abby's voice was sharp. "Just because there's a 'conspiracy theory', " she said, drawing imaginary quotations in the air as she spoke, "it doesn't mean there isn't a conspiracy."

"And, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you," responded McGee, quoting from his favorite Thomas Pynchon novel. Still, he wasn't quite convinced. "Super-secret DNA database, huh? Right," he drew out the word to express his skepticism.

"Just get your butt down here!" Abby slammed the phone down and went back to her keyboard.

With a sigh, McGee called his partner over to his desk, told her about Abby's call, and asked her to take over for him. He explained what he was doing and then headed down to the lab.

Several hours later, Abby's assertion that such a database existed was confirmed when they finally cracked an encryption code allowing them access to said secure FBI server. Immediately, they set the searches going then sat back and waited for the results.

"You covered your tracks, right?" Abby asked.

McGee nodded. "Definitely. The bots I sent deleted all the logs behind them. No way they detected us." Still, they both monitored the computers to make certain no one from the FBI was tracing their connection.

After thirty minutes, McGee was satisfied their bots remained undetected. Knowing Abby was more than capable of monitoring both systems while the search ran, he left her to it and went back to his own search up in the squad room. He was pleased when Ziva informed him upon his return that she had put out a BOLO on Maggie Donaldson's car and that a hit had just come back. The car had been seen at a motel just outside Shenandoah National Forest. She was just reaching for her phone to inform Gibbs when he entered the squad room.

The lead agent would have given his usual 'Grab your gear' command except the other two agents were already doing so. The three headed for the elevator, relieved finally to have something to go on. They only hoped they would get some answers when they got to the motel.

Inside the elevator, Ziva voiced the question that was on her mind as well as McGee's. "How is Tony? You have been gone for most of the day; I assume you saw him." She hazarded a glance at the back of the team lead's head.

"What did I tell you about assuming, Officer David?" Gibbs answered his voice quiet and tightly controlled.

"That I shouldn't," she reluctantly agreed. She and McGee shared a look.

"Well, you're right, I did see him today." He did not look back at her. He waited to see if she would ask again. When she didn't he continued. "He's doing better I suppose," he said.

"Was he awake, Boss?"

"Part of the time he was, McGee." This time the lead agent did glance back at the young man.

"Was he lucid?" asked Ziva.

Gibbs nodded, but didn't answer. The truth was, the medication they had DiNozzo on kept him groggy and what with all the tubes and bandages, it was hard to see his senior agent as anything other than a shell. The young man was usually bouncing off the walls or practically vibrating with barely contained energy. To see him so still was nothing less than a shock. Even when he'd been awake and talking, he'd kept his movements to a minimum. It was just hinky, to use Abby's descriptor.

"Wanted to know when he could go home," was Gibbs' rueful answer. Of course, Tony had still asked when he would be able to go home. The man had always hated hospitals. Didn't matter how sick or injured he was; he'd always push to get out as soon as possible. Gibbs couldn't fault him for that, though, since he was the same way.

The response was enough to make both Ziva and McGee smile for just a moment before turning their attention back to the matter at hand. The rest of the trek to the car was made in silence.

Back in the lab, it took just over an hour after McGee left for the search to come back with a possible match.

"Yes!" Abby shouted, pumping her arms in victory, as her computer finally chirped to reveal the conclusion of its search. She smiled to herself before punching the key that would show her the person most likely to be the owner of the DNA. When it did, she gasped, her arms falling to her sides and the smile leaving her face as the results came up on the screen.

"Whoa!" She so was not expecting that.

* * *

**Author's Note Part 2:** Speaking of DNA databases, I really have no idea if there are any legal issues with keeping DNA samples from suspects who haven't been convicted of anything or if there's a secret database containing any such DNA; it just sounded good and fit my overall plot objective.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N**: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed. My muse loves them! Here's another chapter for you. Once again, the standard disclaimers apply: I don't own anything NCIS related (other than my DVDs) and I still don't know squat about medicine in general, brain injuries in particular, or much of anything else, really. :)

I didn't get as far with this chapter as I expected, but thought this was a good place to stop for now. With any luck, I'll have the next chapter, lucky #13 as it were, ready and up in a day or two. Enjoy!

* * *

The black Dodge Charger pulled into the Blue Mountain Lodge parking lot, the tires squealing to a stop in front of the lobby. The driver got out and walked through the door and up to the desk. He waited about three seconds before he started to ring the bell on the desk until someone stepped out from the back. The other two occupants of the car watched as he flashed his badge and spoke briefly with the clerk. The young man behind the counter checked his computer and then handed over a room key, which the driver took before stalking back to the car.

Once in motion again, the car slowly made its way to the opposite end of the lot before stopping once more in front of a silver Honda Civic. The federal agents verified the license plate number before all three exited the Charger. Walking up a flight of stairs, the driver pointed out the second room from the end to the other two agents. All three placed a hand on their service weapons, ready to draw them if necessary. The two younger agents took their positions on either side of the door as the driver stepped up and knocked loudly.

"NCIS!" he called out. "PFC Rifken, open the door!" They waited. But then, waiting wasn't Leroy Jethro Gibbs' strong suit. Within five seconds, he had unlocked the door with the room key and opened it enough to place his foot just inside. Glancing quickly at the other two who had drawn their weapons, they nodded and drawing his own, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped quickly inside.

They found the room inside empty except for a duffle bag on one of the beds. The door to the bathroom was closed and the Gibbs put a finger to his mouth signaling the other two to remain quiet. He held his Sig in front of him as he stepped toward the interior door and was just reaching for the knob when the door suddenly opened.

The young woman screamed in fear and dropped the towel she'd been wrapping around herself. Before she could react further, Gibbs grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the bathroom as he stepped inside. Calling out, "Clear!" he re-holstered his Sig, picked up the towel and held it out to the young woman so she could cover herself. She'd been trying to do so with her arms and hands and had failed miserably.

"Maggie Donaldson?" he asked.

"Yeah, who the hell are you?" answered the girl warily, her tone belying her embarrassment as she allowed him to re-wrap the towel around her petite body. With one hand, she pulled a long band of light brown hair out of her eyes and tucked it back behind her ear.

Gibbs held up his shield and ID again so she could see it. "Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS," he responded. "Special Agent McGee, Officer David," he added, nodding to the others.

"You're looking for Dave, aren't you?" she asked as she looked at each of the agents in turn.

Gibbs nodded. "Where is he?"

"Not here." Again, her tone of voice was defiant in spite of her obvious nervousness. "Do you mind if I put some clothes on?" she asked.

"Yep. Any idea where he is right now?" Gibbs eyes bore into hers trying to detect any kind of deception.

The young woman looked at the other two agents for a moment before turning back to the apparent leader. She shook her head slightly, "Not really. He's somewhere in the park, I know that much. But he didn't say exactly where he was going."

"When did he go into the park?" Gibbs asked.

"Friday morning."

"Have you talked to him since then?"

Again, she shook her head. "No."

"Did he say when he would be back?" McGee arched an eyebrow in apology as he glanced at his boss.

Maggie Donaldson turned to face the younger man. "No. He just said that someone would be coming after him and that he couldn't stay with me." She turned back to Gibbs. "He didn't want me to get hurt."

Gibbs nodded, looking pointedly at the small bandage on her arm. "Looks like you already are," he observed.

"Oh, this?" she asked as she lifted her left arm. "It's nothing, just a scratch, really. Dave did it back at his place. He said it was to throw off anyone who might want to follow us." She looked away shaking her head again. "I didn't understand what he was talking about," she said quietly before turning back to the agents. "I still don't."

Ziva spoke up this time. "Did he say why he thought someone would come after him?"

Maggie turned her attention to her. "He said somebody he worked with had taken something and then they got killed. Dave was scared. He was afraid whoever killed the other guy would come after him next," she explained.

"Why would he think they'd come after him?" asked Gibbs. "Was he involved in the theft?"

"I don't think so," she answered, tugging another long band of hair out of her eyes to tuck behind her other ear. "He's a pretty straight-laced guy. I don't think he's ever done anything even remotely illegal," she said.

After a slight pause, she inhaled sharply and closed her eyes, tilting her head a bit to the side. Opening her eyes again, she looked at Gibbs. "But, I think he did have something in his bag that he didn't want me to see," she said, a glimpse of understanding appearing on her face. "He wouldn't even let me touch the bag," she added. "He's never done that before, I mean, except for his guns or his knives."

The three agents shared a look. "Would you be willing to give us a DNA sample?" Gibbs asked. "We found some blood at your boyfriend's apartment that we can't identify," he responded to her unspoken question. "If it's yours, we'd like to know that."

"No problem, as long as you'll let me get dressed now," she smiled.

One corner of Gibbs' mouth twitched upward as he nodded to her before heading for the door. Passing the junior agents, he said "McGee."

"I'll get the DNA kit and get a sample," the younger man answered as he followed his boss out the door. He continued toward the car as Gibbs went the opposite way and pulled out his phone. Within an hour, they had Ms. Donaldson's DNA sample along with a signed statement and a promise that she would contact them if PFC Rifken showed up or contacted her. Gibbs decided they would stay in Luray overnight so they could canvass the establishments near all of the park entrances first thing in the morning. Gibbs had notified the park service and had McGee forward the BOLO to the park office as well.

"Why are we not searching the park for Rifken?" McGee asked nervously.

"Well, McGee," Gibbs spoke with a hint of sarcasm, "there's only about 196 _**thousand**_ acres of parkland to search. It's 105 miles north to south."

"Not to mention the fact that he has had more than three days' head start," added Ziva.

"He could be anywhere. Hell, he may not even be **in** the park at this point," the lead agent concluded. "Our best bet is to get the BOLO out to as many places around the park entrances as we can. Someone may have seen him. Hopefully, we'll get a lead on him in the morning."

* * *

Abby Sciuto frantically paced back and forth in her lab, arms waving as she softly argued with herself.

"This is impossible! It simply can't be! There's no way!" she told herself.

She spun around and started again in the opposite direction. "Of course, DNA does not lie," she reasoned. "If that's what the DNA says, then that's what it is!"

She spun around again. "Unless, someone made a mistake," she said followed by another 180-degree spin.

"No! Gibbs does not make mistakes." She nodded, resolute in her conviction. "And he's trained Timmy and Ziva to not make mistakes either!" she nodded, trying to convince herself that neither of the junior partners would mess up evidence this badly.

She pursed her lips as the implication of that last statement hit her. "Then, that means maybe I made a mistake!" She gasped as the horror of that thought registered on her face and stopped her in her tracks.

"I made a mistake?" she asked herself softly.

"No. No! No way!" With that, she spun around one last time, grabbed the offending piece of evidence and proceeded to take another sample from it. "I'll prove it! I'll run a new DNA sample and check it again!" _This is for Tony_, she thought. So, she would make absolutely sure that nothing could refute her findings.

Abby worked through the night to prepare the DNA sample for screening. As dawn approached, she scanned the sample into her computer and then setup the search parameters to check it against the NCIS internal database, CODIS, and both FBI databases. Running the searches simultaneously would be slow, but she still should have the results faster than if she had to run them all individually. If the first sample was correct, she expected to get a hit rather quickly; if not, she might have to wait a while. She had been working non-stop for some time now, so she took the opportunity to crash on the futon in her office while she awaited the results. She grabbed Bert to use as a pillow and lay down. She was fast asleep before her head hit the hippo and she never even heard the soft farting sound it made.

* * *

Gibbs took a sip of his coffee as he stood outside the motel rooms. He saw McGee returning from the lobby just as Ziva stepped out of her room. She smiled a greeting as she joined him in viewing the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains rising up in the distance. Gibbs glanced at her still wet hair, but did not say anything.

"I woke early this morning," she explained, "and went for a run. I believe it helped to clear my head." Gibbs nodded, but again said nothing.

McGee approached them. "Boss, I faxed the BOLO out to all the hotels, motels, gas stations and convenience stores around the other park entrances like you asked and the ranger I spoke with at the park service assured me that it's been posted at all four entrances as well," he informed the lead agent who nodded his approval.

After a quick breakfast, they got into the Charger and started canvassing the businesses surrounding the north entrance to the park. By the time they finished, they had yet to receive any hits so they checked out of the motel and drove back to Washington, arriving at the Navy Yard in just under an hour.

Gibbs dropped the other two off at the NCIS headquarters building before driving to Bethesda Naval Hospital to check on his senior agent. When he'd left the younger man the day before, he'd been somewhat relieved to see a little of the DiNozzo spark returning. He knew they had begun taking Tony off the sedatives the day before and he was hopeful DiNozzo would be more himself today.

He arrived to find the younger man being put through his paces under the watchful eyes of their friend, Dr. Mallard as well as the attending physician, Dr. Morris. When he saw his boss and mentor, Tony's eyes lit up a bit and he offered a tentative smile. "Hey, Boss!" he greeted.

Gibbs returned an even bigger smile as he watched his agent walk slowly across the room, a male nurse on either side of him. Actually, it was more of a shuffle than a walk, but Gibbs was heartened just to see the younger man up and moving. He sidled up to the M.E. and asked, "So, how's he doing, Duck?"

Dr. Mallard's smile was slightly more guarded, but he, too, was encouraged by Tony's progress. "He's a bit shaky," he said, "but, that's to be expected. He's been off his feet for at least three days and, given his injuries, is undoubtedly in quite a lot of pain."

He turned to the patient. "How are you feeling, Tony? Any dizziness?" he asked.

The young man started to shake his head, but thought better of it. Not only had he caught the warning glare from Gibbs, but he was pretty sure his boss had seen him start to sway just then. The two burly guys at his side definitely had and he shook his arms to get them to let go of him.

"Maybe just a little," he reluctantly admitted. "But, as long as I don't move too fast, it's not too bad." He looked hopefully at Gibbs. "Whaddya say, Boss? Think I can get outta here today?" he asked.

Gibbs shot a look of supplication at the ceiling. Shaking his head, he replied, "You only just got out of bed, DiNozzo. Don't you think you should wait until you can at least get to the head and back on your own?"

"Come on, Boss!" whined Tony.

"Not my decision," Gibbs said, glancing at the two doctors beside him. Tony shifted his attention to them.

"Come on, Doc! Ducky?" he entreated. "You can't keep me here forever! Look, I'm walking on my own. I'm good," he tried to convince them. "See? I'm right as rain."

Unfortunately for him, everyone else in the room could see the thin sheen of sweat that now covered his face and the finely etched lines of pain around his eyes and mouth. He was also breathing heavier. He foolishly hoped they hadn't noticed that as well. Of course, they had. Who was he kidding? The two nurses each grabbed an arm and gently led him back to the bed, Tony protesting the whole way. As they helped him back into bed and adjusted it so he was sitting up, the protests became more desperate.

"You can't… keep me… here!" he panted, throwing the two doctors a mutinous look that, given the thick bandages covering his left eye, might have been comical under other circumstances. "I can… sign… myself… out… A-M-… A… you know."

Tony closed his good eye as his vision grayed and white dots swam across. He had to bite back at the nausea creeping up his throat and will himself not to vomit. He didn't notice Gibbs moving until he felt the soft cuff of the hand on the top of his head. He looked up to see his boss looking down at him and was surprised by the compassion in those penetrating blue eyes. Once again, he felt the comfort of a hand resting gently on his head, the thumb softly rubbing the tension from his brow.

"I know you want to go home, Tony," Gibbs spoke in that quiet voice he sometimes used. "I know. But, you need to get your strength back first." He paused, considering what he should say. "You've been through… a hell of a lot, Anthony. I don't think any of us realize just how much you've been through." He gave the younger man a pointed look. "Taking the time to get the rest you need does not mean you're weak. Nobody is going to think any less of you for giving your body time to heal." He continued looking DiNozzo in the eye until he saw the young man nod ever so slightly.

"I gotcha, Boss," Tony whispered and then closed his eyes. He was asleep in less than a minute.

Gibbs turned to the doctors. "Well?" he asked. The calm he'd radiated a moment ago for the benefit of his injured friend was gone in a heartbeat and he was now fairly teeming with tension. "What's the prognosis? Is he gonna be okay?"

The two medical men shared a look before Dr. Morris spoke up. "So far, his gross motor skills appear to be unaffected, though it's still a little too early to tell for sure. As you could see, he's up and walking to a point. Now, the stiffness and fatigue are most likely due to injuries to the muscles and the fact that he's been bed-ridden for more than three days. We'll get him back up again tomorrow and see how he does at that time." He paused and Dr. Mallard took up the report.

"His fine motor skills are more of a concern, I'm afraid, Jethro," he explained. "While he was able to hold a pen to some degree, he was not able to so properly so as to write with it. There does not appear to be any physical damage to the hand that would explain this deficit, so we can only presume at this point that it is due to brain injury."

He held up his hand as he saw his friend was about to interject. "We have no way of knowing at this point whether this is a temporary condition or if it's permanent . As I said, Jethro, only time will tell."

Gibbs rubbed a hand over his face and turned back toward his senior agent with a troubled look. If Tony couldn't hold a pen properly to write, he wouldn't be able to hold and fire his service weapon properly. He could only pray that this was a temporary condition and that it would correct itself in time. He cast another entreating look heavenward. He had no idea what DiNozzo would do if he couldn't return to the field. The thought of the vibrant young man suffocating in a nine to five office job was almost more than he could bear. He knew Tony only barely tolerated the office work necessary to their job; he lived for the fieldwork. If he couldn't do that… Gibbs buried that thought before it could take hold. Tony would be fine.

_Or he'll deal with me!_ Gibbs thought to himself.


	13. Chapter 13

NCIS – Fathers and Sons Chptr 13

**Author's Note**: Thanks again for the reviews and support! As always, I do not own NCIS, its characters or much of anything else. I also still don't know anything about anything, so please be kind with any corrections. All the constructive criticsm so far has been appreciated! One other thing, it seems the Powers That Be have decided to name Tony's father 'Anthony DiNozzo, Sr.' even though there's been no reference in 6+ years of Tony being a 'Junior.' I haven't decided whether or not to change Tony's father's name in this story. If you feel strongly about it one way or the other, please let me know.

**Warning**: There is a brief mention of child abuse in this chapter, though nothing graphic. There is a bit of cursing as well.

* * *

Gibbs walked into the forensics lab, surprised to find it empty, though several of Abby's computers and machines were working hard in her absence. He looked around wondering where his favorite Goth had gone and finally noticed a sticky note on one of the monitors. He picked it up and read it.

_ Gibbs, _

_ Went to lunch with Jimmy, Timmy & Ziva. Leave __the Caf-Pow! I still don't have anything for you yet. _

_ Sorry! __Abby _

Chuckling at the frowney face with the fangs and figuring the young woman did need to eat, he left the massive beverage as requested and went back up to the squad room. He was more than a little surprised that Abby hadn't found anything yet. Usually by now, they would have a DNA match and would be actively pursuing the dirtbags. He shook his head. The case was really getting to him, as he knew it was getting to all of them. It wasn't just the fact that Tony was hurt, either. They had run into dead end after dead end, brick wall after brick wall. Yeah, they knew who killed Petty Officer Benson and they knew it was the same men who had kidnapped and tortured Tony. Yet, they were still no closer to catching anyone than when they'd started. They still weren't sure how everything tied together and they still had no idea how Tony might be connected to all of it.

Why would the men who killed Benson think that Tony knew anything about the missile guidance system? Why would they torture him for information? _Probably they were just looking for information about the investigation_, Gibbs thought. They killed Petty Officer Benson; why didn't they kill Tony? They had a perfect opportunity to do so. Why did they simply dump him in a public park where he was sure to be found?

Gibbs' gut was churning. It was telling him the cigar smoking man in the warehouse was the key to all of it. But, who was he? Apparently, he'd never been investigated, or at least, he'd never given up a DNA sample. If he had, Abby would have gotten a match by now, Gibbs was certain of that. He picked up the files Ziva had given him. They contained the background information on the Baltimore warehouse and the dossier she'd compiled on DiNozzo. There had to be something in the files that would lead to the mystery man.

Nearly an hour after he sat down at his desk Tim McGee and Ziva David returned to the squad room carrying their lunches. Abby had convinced her three friends to visit Tony on their break, so they still had not eaten and were starving. It was good to see their partner, though they worried about his recovery. The bruises on his face and arms were beginning to heal, but still were difficult to look at. He had been asleep when they arrived, though they could tell it was anything but restful. Tony's legs and good arm had twitched violently several times and he'd whimpered in his sleep until, as before, he'd woken with a start. He didn't cry out this time, but they were disturbed nonetheless. Once he'd become aware of where he was and who was with him, Tony had tried to shrug off his friends' concern, insisting he was fine. He certainly looked more alert than he had the last time they'd seen him. Abby spent the entire visit snuggled as close to him as she dared. He had asked how the case was going and they had filled him in. He appeared just as frustrated at the lack of progress as they felt. The four stayed as long as they could and left him with a brooding look on his face.

Now as they sat down, they glanced at each other, silently agreeing that with the look on their boss's face, they should get to work first and eat later. Refocusing their attention to the case, they started checking for hits on the various BOLOs they had filed. Looking for anything that would get the case back on track.

The three worked in silence for nearly two hours, for the umpteenth time going over everything they had looking for that missing bit that would lead them to a resolution. For his part, Gibbs was just staring at the files in front of him by this point. He'd read through them yet again, but still couldn't come up with anything concrete to satisfy his gut. While he knew that all families were different, he couldn't conceive of a situation where a father, or even an uncle, would order someone to give a son or nephew the kind of beating Tony had taken and then stand there and watch as the order was carried out. He had seen a number of child abuse cases where the father had beaten a child to death and while he always found it difficult to stomach, he knew it happened. However, he could not recall a single case in fifteen years of investigating where a father had watched someone else, a stranger, beat his child. It just didn't add up. He could almost feel the gears within his mind going into overdrive as he considered the situation.

Gibbs phone rang, giving him just the diversion he needed. He picked it up without looking at it.

"Yeah, Gibbs," he answered. "He _**what**_? When? And you just _let_ him?! **Goddam** it!" he cursed as he slammed down the receiver. Heads popped up in cubicles throughout the office as he jumped up, grabbed his jacket and stormed out of the squad room without another word. Not wanting to wait for the elevator, he took the stairs two at a time while he pulled out his cell phone and hit one of the speed dial numbers.

* * *

Abby returned to her lab, happy to see the caffeinated elixir of life, as she sometimes called it, waiting for her. Of course, that meant that Gibbs had been down here, probably looking for some kind of lead. She sighed and moved over to the computers, checking for results on her DNA searches. As before, the NCIS, CODIS and national FBI databases had returned no matches. The super-secret FBI database, however, was still chugging away. It took another couple of hours before it spit out an identical match to the original search.

"Damn!" Abby cursed. She thought back over the previous sixteen hours or so. She had been extra careful when she'd prepared the second sample, so she was sure that she hadn't made any mistakes this time. Of course, that meant that she hadn't made a mistake the first time, either. Somehow, that didn't make her feel any better. She needed a second opinion.

McGee picked up his desk phone on the first ring. "McGee!" Abby shouted into the phone. "Something hinky's going on here," she said as she started pacing through her lab again.

"Yeah? What's that, Abby?"

"I've got a DNA sample down here from something you guys brought back from the WOH," she explained. "But, the ID I got a match on doesn't make any sense! If this match is correct, I should have gotten a hit from another database – **two** other databases, actually – and I didn't! How can that be, McGee?" she spoke quickly, her confusion and a hint of anger coloring her voice. "And, and contamination doesn't seem to be the issue here. If the sample was contaminated, it likely would have kicked out a different match each time. But, it didn't. I got the same match both times, but only in the one database!"

"What are you talking about, Abby?" McGee tried to make sense of her rambling, but was having a tough time of it.

"D-N-A, McGee! Haven't you been listening?" she yelled into the phone. "I got a hit from the super-secret FBI database, but not from the NCIS database, CODIS or the national FBI database! If the match I got is correct, I should have gotten a hit on the other databases, too!" She was getting more wound up by the minute.

"How could I have gotten a hit on the one database and not the others? I know for a fact there is a DNA sample in the other databases that should have returned a hit, but didn't. How… can... that… be?" she asked, emphasizing each word.

McGee scrunched up his face as he tried to come up with an appropriate response. "Abby," he said, "I'm still not entirely sure what the problem is, but the only thing I can think of to tell you is a quote from Mr. Spock."

"McGee! What?" Abby was thoroughly exasperated now.

"Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," McGee said.

"Star Trek? You're quoting me Star Trek, McGee?"

He repeated patiently, "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." He paused, wincing in advance at his forthcoming words. "It _is_ logical, Abby."

McGee waited for Abby to lose it completely. When she didn't, he became concerned. "Abby?" He waited a few seconds for a response. "Abby? Are you okay?" he asked. He heard a heavy sigh on the other end.

"No, McGee," she said, her previous bluster completely deflated. Not really." She paused. "Is Gibbs up there?" she asked.

"No, he left in a mad rush a little while ago," answered Tim. "And before you ask, no, he didn't say where he was going."

Abby was thankful she didn't have to try to explain this one to their boss right now. "Okay, McGee. Can you let me know when he gets back?"

"Sure, Abs. Anything I can do 'til he does?" he asked.

"No."

"Wait," asked McGee, "You said you got a DNA match from the Baltimore warehouse, right?" Ziva's ears perked up at that and she looked over at her partner.

Abby sounded none too happy when she responded, "Yeah."

"Well, whose is it?" McGee asked.

Abby shook her head, but couldn't bring herself to answer the question.

"Abby?" prodded McGee. "Abby? What did you get the sample from?"

"The cigar," she answered, her sense of defeat evident over the phone.

"But, that's a good thing, right?" McGee questioned. "Now we know who ordered Tony's kidnapping." He smiled at the thought of taking that bastard down. Again, he tried to get the forensic scientist to reveal the identity of the match. "Who is it?"

Abby didn't respond for a moment. When she did, though she still sounded discouraged, she was more forceful with her request. "Just let me know when Gibbs gets back, okay, Tim?"

Realizing he wasn't going to get an answer out of her, he agreed and hung up. Ziva had walked over to his desk to try to glean more from the conversation.

"She has identified the DNA from the cigar, yes?" she asked her partner.

McGee nodded, "Yes, but she won't tell me who it is. She wants to tell Gibbs first."

"So," Ziva said, "call Gibbs and tell him Abby has something for him. He will get it out of her."

* * *

Dr. Mallard was waiting for him by the door to the motor pool parking lot by the time Gibbs got there and together the two walked out to the dark blue sedan Gibbs had signed out. The shorter doctor almost had to run to keep up with the determined pace of the lead agent.

"Do you mind telling me what this is all about, Jethro?" the good doctor asked as they got into the car. Gibbs started the engine and whipped out of the space, barely avoiding another agent who was walking back to the office. He ignored the shouted epithets and obscene gestures as he gunned the engine and roared off the lot.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs answered, his eyes blazing with fury and his knuckles turning white in his death grip on the steering wheel.

Ducky inhaled sharply. "Has something happened?" he asked, watching his friend closely. He noted the set jaw and angry countenance; it was obvious the man beside him was ready to 'blow' as they say. He could only imagine what had caused this reaction.

"He signed himself out!" Gibbs ground out the words through clenched teeth.

"What?!" Ducky was incredulous. "Why, he's in no condition to leave the hospital!" he exclaimed.

Gibbs glanced momentarily at the older man. "He can barely walk, damnit!" He shook his head. "When I get my hands on that stupid, idiotic, thick-headed…" His vocabulary failed him at that moment as he swerved to avoid the cross traffic at the intersection just inside the gate. Slamming on the brakes as they came up to the base exit he barely managed to stop without tearing the arm of the gate right off. As soon as it rose high enough, he punched his right foot onto the accelerator and held it to the floor; tires squealing, the vehicle charged off the base.

When they found the injured senior agent just outside the ER entrance, he was in a heated argument with a doctor, a security guard and two orderlies. Each time anyone tried to grab him, he would angrily shrug them off and he kept trying to move around the group and farther away from the building.

Gibbs drove up and screeched to a halt at the curb. He didn't even bother to turn off the engine, barely getting it into Park, as he threw the car door open and jumped out stalking toward the small group that was drawing stares from everyone in sight.

"DiNozzo!" he shouted angrily. "What the HELL are you doing?" he demanded, glaring at his subordinate. He was shocked when the younger man returned the glare.

Gibbs took a long look at him. He had gotten hold of a set of greens and had managed to get them on, though he had only gotten his right arm through its opening. The shirt completely covered his left arm, with the cast on it, the arm of the shirt flapping uselessly in the breeze. Angry bruises that matched the fury in his good eye still covered his face and his left eye remained bandaged. DiNozzo stood erect, his jaw set and his posture showed his determination. This time, there was no swaying as he shook his head when the doctor implored him to return to his hospital room. Gibbs could tell it was the adrenaline that kept his second upright. It was only a matter of time before the rush ended and the younger man would fall. He moved to stand next to his agent.

"DiNozzo," he repeated, much softer this time, but the edge of anger was still there. "You need to rest, remember?"

"I can rest at home or at NCIS," DiNozzo replied.

Gibbs shook his head. "Tony," he began, but was cut off.

"Boss!" the voice was firm. "I'm not staying here." He paused before trying a different approach. "Look, you're not getting anywhere with the case. I can take it easy. I can rest down in Abby's lab if necessary… You need me!" Tony insisted. He didn't flinch when Gibbs shot him a look. "You need me, Boss," he repeated.

Ducky had watched the entire exchange with a critical eye. He was encouraged to see Tony looking stronger. Of course, he knew as well that it was mostly due to the adrenaline coursing through the young man. Still, if he had the strength to get this far from his room under his own steam, surely it was a good sign. The medical examiner saw no evidence of any difficulty breathing and noted that the lines of stress and pain on the young man's face were somewhat diminished. Knowing how Tony hated hospitals, he sympathized. Yet, he could not in good conscience condone the man signing himself out Absent Medical Authorization.

"Tony," he said, "you really should be in bed…"

"Ducky," Tony turned to face the older man. "I have been in bed for four days! I need to do something!" He looked between the M.E. and his boss. "I need to help catch these bastards!"

Gibbs understood where his agent was coming from. He really did. Hell, he'd signed himself out of more hospitals than even Tony had. And, Gibbs had to admit, they really could use DiNozzo's help on this one. He had a knack for making connections on cases and this was one case they just couldn't seem to connect the dots with. He turned to his old friend.

"Ducky?" he asked, "If he stays off his feet and gets some rest?"

The old doctor sighed heavily, knowing where this was going. "Jethro, I can't condone this! As his primary physician, I believe he should be in hospital, getting all the medication and _immediate_ care that he needs," he explained his position.

"Can you keep an eye on him?" Gibbs asked. "Make sure he gets what he needs?" He continued before his friend could say anything. "He's gonna do this anyway," Gibbs glanced back at his senior agent. Usually, he could count on the younger man to follow orders. But, now Gibbs recognized the glint in DiNozzo's eye that said 'you can take your orders and shove them straight up your…' Oh yeah, Gibbs had seen that look before. His goal now was to get DiNozzo somewhere safe where he could be looked after.

Gibbs looked back at the M.E. "Duck?" he asked again. He watched as the good doctor wrestled with his conscience and the Hippocratic Oath. Shaking his head, the older man acquiesced.

"I've really no choice, now, do I?" he asked with a twinge of ire. He glanced back and forth between the two men who were so very much alike. With another shake of his head and a tut-tut, he motioned the other doctor over to the side to discuss their patient's medication schedule and treatment outside the hospital.

Gibbs motioned the guard and orderlies away and led his senior agent over to the car. As he got DiNozzo settled in the back seat, he gently cuffed the younger man in the back of the head and spoke quietly, "we _will_ discuss this later."

Standing up straight, he heard his cell phone ringing and answered it while they waited for Dr. Mallard.

"Yeah, Gibbs."

"Boss?" McGee's voice on the other end hesitated.

Gibbs sighed. "Yeah, McGee?" When he heard no response he barked, "Today!"

"Uh, right, Boss!" McGee responded. "Um, Abby called up looking for you. I think she's got something."

"Yeah? What?"

"Uh, w-well, she, she wouldn't tell me," the young man stammered. "But, I think she got a match on the DNA from the cigar at the WOH."

"WOH?" asked Gibbs.

"Oh, uh, that's what Abby calls the warehouse in Baltimore, Gibbs. It stands for 'Warehouse of Horrors," he explained.

"And she wouldn't tell you?" Gibbs asked.

"Nope."

Gibbs sighed, wondering what was going on with his forensic scientist. "Okay, McGee. We'll be there in half an hour." He flipped the phone closed and put it back in his pocket.

"Duck!" he called over to the medical examiner. "We need to get back. Now!"

Doctor Mallard arranged to have the hospital send DiNozzo's medical records to him ASAP and hurried over to the car. They made it back to the Navy Yard in record time and Gibbs sent DiNozzo to Autopsy with Ducky while he turned the car in before calling Ziva and McGee, instructing them to meet him in the lab. He was just exiting the stairwell when the other two agents arrived in the elevator. They filed into the lab to find Abby pacing back and forth, tension oozing from every fiber of her being.

"Abby!" Gibbs called to her. "Whaddya got?"

She ran up to him, her anxiety clear to all of them. "Gibbs! I don't know what to do! It doesn't seem possible, but then McGee said that Spock thing and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made." She looked up at him. "T-the-the Spock thing, not the evidence. The evidence doesn't make any sense to me at all. It just doesn't! It's impossible!"

Gibbs looked at McGee who shrugged apologetically and shook his head. Tim had no idea how to explain it to him anyway. Abby kept rambling on about DNA searches that didn't match, but did for a couple more minutes until Gibbs grabbed both of her arms and forced her to look at him.

"Abby!" he practically shouted. "What have you got?" he reiterated.

"This," she said as she stepped over to the computers. On the left-most one, she pulled up a DNA profile from the NCIS database. "Given the hit I finally got on the DNA from the cigar, this is the match I would have expected to get, but didn't," she said before moving to the other computer and pulling up another DNA profile. "And this is the match I finally got from an FBI database that isn't supposed to exist."

They all stared at the two profiles. No one spoke for a couple of minutes. Then Ziva cleared her throat.

"But, Abby," she said, "those two profiles are nothing alike. Why would you expect to get a match with this one," she indicated the one on the left from the NCIS database, "when the other one is the one that actually matched?"

"Because of who they belong to," Abby said. They all just stared at her in confusion. She typed the command to bring up the identity of the DNA profile on the computer on the left and the screen filled with the picture and information for one Anthony D. DiNozzo. Moving over to the other computer, Abby repeated the process and that monitor filled with the picture and information of another, older, man – one William "Vito" DiNozzo.

The small group stared at the two monitors, digesting the portents they contained. Again, no one spoke for some time.

"But, Abby," McGee began, "they don't match. Like, at all." He was confused.

"I know," Abby responded dejectedly. "That's why it didn't make any sense to me." She held up both arms toward the two monitors.

"You know what this means, right?" asked McGee to no one in particular.

"M-hmm," Abby answered. "It means, that Tony's father… _isn't_ Tony's father!" she said as she turned to face them. She gasped as she saw movement in her periphery only to realize that Tony was standing in the lab doorway, a look of absolute shock on his face.


	14. Chapter 14

**Standard disclaimers apply**: Sadly, I still don't own NCIS or its characters and despite Tony being banged up a bit, I promise to return him in good working order. To date, I have made no monetary gain by writing this little piece of whatever it is nor do I anticipate any future monetary gain. I still don't own much of anything, so please don't sue me. (Though, if you wanted to take some of my cats, as much as I love them, it _would_ give my allergies a break.)

**Author's Note**: Well, folks, we're finally getting to the meat of all. This opening scene is actually the one that started this whole adventure in fan fiction for me. I was contemplating the question of how a father could be so callous, or at the very least so indifferent, toward his only child, as DiNozzo Sr. seems to be toward Tony. I thought about the times Tony mentioned his father's (and mother's) drinking and I wondered what might have driven them to alcohol. The possibilities I came up with became the crux of the Tony-angst and I tried to come up with a plausible case that would bring these issues into the open for our intrepid investigator. The story you've been reading is the result. Only you, my readers, can decide whether I accomplished that goal or not. Although it's taken me nearly three years to get this far, I actually wrote this opening scene way back at the start. I read it over again in the wee hours this morning, it seems to have held up fairly well, and I only had to make minor tweaks to make it fit with the previous chapter that I wrote just yesterday.

* * *

Previously on NCIS:

"_You know what this means, right?" asked McGee to no one in particular._

"_M-hmm," Abby answered. "It means that Tony's father… _isn't_ Tony's father!" she said as she turned to face them. She gasped as she saw movement in her periphery only to realize that Tony DiNozzo was standing in the lab doorway, a look of absolute shock on his face._

* * *

Tony felt as if he'd been kicked in the chest. All the air left his lungs and try as he might, he just couldn't fill them back up again. He just stood there in stunned silence, a stricken look on his face as he stared at the images on the monitors. He felt his shoulders start to shake a little and choking down a sob, he turned abruptly and walked as quickly as he could back to the elevator, surprised at how much the hallway appeared to widen with each step he took. He did not want to break down in front of his team and he most certainly could not let himself do so in front of Gibbs. It was bad enough he'd allowed himself to be kidnapped and tortured. To show weakness now… well, he didn't think he could take Gibbs' further disappointment in him on top of everything else.

Back in the lab, Abby turned to face her boss. "Gibbs!" Abby was guilt-stricken. "I didn't know he was there. I never would have said it like that if I'd known Tony was standing right there!" she tried to explain. Gibbs just shook his head slightly and started after DiNozzo.

_Keep walking_, Tony told himself as he struggled to put one foot in front of the other. It proved more difficult than he would have thought possible. Both his feet suddenly seemed filled with lead and it took a conscious effort to pick each foot up and place it back down in turn. All the while, he kept trying to force even the tiniest amount of air into his lungs, his mind whirling with this newfound revelation.

His father wasn't really his father after all. He tried to wrap his mind around that thought and found that he just couldn't do it. When he finally reached the elevator – it felt like he'd walked for miles instead of the four or five short strides it normally took – he jabbed at the button on the wall repeatedly, as if it would make the elevator doors open any faster.

_My father _isn't_ my father_. The thought kept spinning around in his head. It felt like he'd been standing in front of the elevator doors for hours when they finally opened and he stepped into the waiting car. He staggered to the back wall and leaned his good arm on the handrail. By now, he'd managed to take a few ragged breaths and he closed his eyes, trying to hold it together until the doors closed and he could release his pent up emotions. Tension pinged throughout his entire body and he thought he literally might shake apart. After a moment, he heard the doors close behind him and was just about to turn around to stop the elevator when he heard a button on the control panel being swatted and he felt the elevator car shudder to a stop.

_Shit_! He hadn't heard Gibbs follow him into the elevator. He shut his eyes even tighter as he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to the wall hard as he struggled now to rein in the emotions he wanted nothing more than to release.

For his part, Leroy Jethro Gibbs stood, hands at his sides, still facing the elevator doors as he allowed Tony time to compose himself. He'd hesitated to follow him, knowing that his senior field agent needed time to process this new information. He'd also been hesitant to intrude on the younger man's privacy. In the end, his concern for Tony's well-being and his desire to be there for him overrode any concern he might have had that he was overstepping his bounds. He knew Tony was in a particularly vulnerable state now and he wanted to ensure that the young man knew he was not alone in all of this. So, he stood there, head down, as he listened to Tony's quiet sobs as they slowly faded. When he heard a couple of deep, though still shuddering, breaths behind him he turned slightly to his right, still not looking at the other man.

"I always knew he didn't really care… about… me," Tony spoke softly, and then he chuckled bitterly, "guess now I know why."

Gibbs hazarded a glance behind. Tony was leaning into the rear wall, his right hand in a white-knuckle grip on the handrail, the fingers of his left hand curled into a loose fist around the cast. He swallowed back the anger he felt at the sight of the tear-stained cheek and he vowed to get William DiNozzo in an interrogation room and make him pay for causing his agent so much pain. He had to turn his face away lest the younger man glimpse the hard fury in his eyes. He didn't want Tony thinking it was aimed him.

They were silent for a moment or two before Tony spoke again. "He was there," he said in a bleak voice barely above a whisper, "in the warehouse." He stole a quick glance at his boss before turning back to face the wall again. "He stayed in the shadows. I couldn't see him… and most of the time I couldn't really hear what he was saying, but I recognized his voice." He paused and when he continued, his voice was tinged with pain. "And the cigars."

He turned a bit sideways to glance at Gibbs again and said softly, "I know I should've told you sooner. I'm sorry, Boss," he whispered as he closed his eyes again, his face twisting with the pain of knowing he'd let his boss down. Again.

Gibbs turned toward him, raising his left hand, and Tony braced himself for the head slap he was sure to come. He couldn't stop the small cry that escaped his lips when Gibbs' hand instead came to softly rest first on the back of his head, then on the nape of his neck. Tears fell anew as he felt the gentle squeeze of Gibbs' hand.

"Don't apologize," Gibbs said softly, his eyes never leaving the other man's.

Tony nodded. "I know," he said, "sign of weakness."

"Nah," Gibbs replied, shaking his head. "Not necessary." He leaned in closer to Tony, giving the younger man's neck a light squeeze. "You have nothing to apologize for," he reminded him. "None of this is your fault."

Gibbs kept his hand on Tony until the younger man was able to compose himself once more. Tony was again surprised at just how comforting such a small gesture of affection could be and he drew strength from the contact.

When Tony finally turned to face him, Gibbs let his hand fall and with the other, he gently poked two fingers under Tony's chin. The young man got the message loud and clear and he nodded in acknowledgement. The two men then turned back toward the elevator doors and Gibbs reached out to hit the stop button again. The elevator doors opened again to the hallway outside the lab and without turning, Gibbs said, "Go back to Abby's lab, DiNozzo. Get some rest."

"Boss!" Tony started to protest.

"Wasn't a request, Tony." The former Marine's tone, though gentle, brooked no argument. With a sigh, the younger man nodded and he stepped out of the elevator. He watched the elevator doors close once again before turning back to the lab. He made it as far as the opposite wall before the adrenaline left his body and he sagged against it, his vision graying as the dizziness and fatigue started to overtake him.

In the lab, Abby, Ziva and McGee stared at each other for a moment after Gibbs had left, still too shocked to speak. It wasn't until they heard the ding of the elevator outside that they moved or even breathed. None of them could fathom what was going through their friend's mind after this bomb had been dropped, but they all knew it couldn't be good.

"What's this going to do to Tony?" Abby asked softly. "He's going to be devastated! What do we do? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Poor Tony! Whadowedo?" Tears streaked down her face leaving dark rivers of mascara on her cheeks. She was starting to ramp up again and McGee took her by the shoulders in a preemptive strike.

"Abby," he said firmly, locking his eyes on hers. "Tony's going to be fine." Tim only wished he believed it himself. He knew Tony took pride in declaring how tough DiNozzos were, how they didn't cry and they didn't pass out. But, Tony's very identity had just been ripped out from under him. What was Tony going to do when he could no longer count on being a DiNozzo? What was it going to do to the senior agent? Tim had no idea, but he knew the whole team would be there to help their friend figure it out.

"McGee is right, Abby," Ziva agreed. "Tony will get through all of this just fine."

"How do you know that?" Abby argued desperately. "How do you know he'll be fine?"

Ziva took one of Abby's hands in hers. "Because, Abby," she assured the distraught woman, "we will be there to help him, to remind him of exactly who he is." She squeezed Abby's hand to convey her conviction.

Abby looked at her two friends. They seemed so sure that Tony would be okay with their help. She nodded, gathering her strength back. "You're right," she said. "Positive thoughts. Tony will be fine. And if he's not, we'll be there for him until he is."

Just then, they heard the elevator ding again. Ziva and McGee shared a look. "We better get back to the squad room," offered McGee. "Gibbs'll want us to find and pick up Tony's father… not his father… Tony's… not… father," he shook his head, faltering as he tried to come up with a name for this new relationship.

Ziva nodded and they left, surprised to see the object of their concern leaning heavily against the wall just outside the lab. He looked terrible, his good eye closed tight, sweat covering his brow and he clutched his chest with his good arm, his breathing rapid and shallow.

"Tony!" Ziva exclaimed. She and McGee each took up on either side of the injured man and half led, half carried him into the lab. Between the three friends, they managed to get Tony to the office and onto the futon where he immediately curled up into a fetal position. Abby grabbed a knit blanket infused with a skull motif and covered him with it before grabbing Bert the hippo and carefully placing the stuffed animal in Tony's arms.

The three of them left Tony in the office as Abby dimmed the lights so he could rest. Again, they all shared a look of concern before the two field agents left the lab and Abby picked up her phone and called Autopsy. Five minutes later, Dr. Mallard was checking Tony over as much as the younger man would allow him while explaining to Abby just how Tony had gotten away from him earlier. He was angry with himself for losing his charge, but somewhat satisfied that rest and medication were all the young man needed for now. That satisfaction disappeared, however, when Abby let him in on the latest revelation and the elderly doctor nearly blew a gasket over the added stress that the news undoubtedly had caused his patient. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a syringe and a small bottle. He carefully filled the syringe with the clear liquid, pushing a bit out before reaching for his patient's good arm. He gestured for Abby to help hold the arm down.

"This will help him sleep for a bit," he informed Abby as he injected the medication. Within minutes, Tony's breathing deepened and steadied as the tension slowly ebbed out of his body as sleep finally took him.

* * *

Back up in the squad room, the two junior members of Team Gibbs were scouring every record they could find and calling everyone who might know to determine where William DiNozzo was now. They had now tied the elder DiNozzo to the warehouse and to Tony's assault. Gibbs had gone upstairs to inform Director Shepard of the latest development.

"We have him at the warehouse where DiNozzo was tortured," Gibbs was making his case for an arrest warrant for the businessman. "Tony remembers hearing his voice; he remembers smelling the damn cigars!"

"But, did Tony actually _see_ his father at the warehouse?" Director Shepard interjected. "Did his father take part in the beating?" she asked. "Right now, all we have is a cigar with his DNA. Other than the fact that he owns the holding company that owns the warehouse, we don't have anything else that ties him to the assault of a federal agent," she reasoned. "I can get you a subpoena for questioning, but an arrest warrant is out of the question," she held up a hand to forestall the argument she saw Gibbs was preparing.

"William DiNozzo is a very wealthy, very well-known and well-connected financier," she explained. "He will have a passel of lawyers and judges at his disposal and he won't hesitate to use them," she said.

"Work with Fornell," she instructed. "See if the FBI can add any muscle to this. Maybe between our two agencies we can get enough for an arrest warrant. We need more to go up against someone as powerful as William DiNozzo."

Frustrated, Gibbs stormed out of the director's office and leaned against the railing overlooking the squad room. His thoughts turned back to the last time he found himself up here, wondering where his senior field agent had gotten. Had it been just four days ago that DiNozzo had gone missing? He shook his head, straightening up as he noticed Ducky entering the squad room. The medical examiner stopped at Ziva's desk to ask a question, his gesture toward the team leader's desk making obvious what he wanted to know. Gibbs saw Ziva glance up at him and the medical examiner's gaze followed hers until it met with Gibbs'. The doctor scowled and nodded toward the stairs and Gibbs understood the unspoken request. He made his way down the stairs and met the other man behind the stairwell.

"Yeah, Duck?" Gibbs asked, "Everything okay with DiNozzo?"

The doctor sighed before responding. "I daresay everything is _not_ okay. Abigail told me what she found and the way Tony found out about it." He directed a pointed look at the team leader.

"The added stress is not going to do him any good and it could easily become a barrier to his recovery. I really think we should take him back to Bethesda," he stated. "His being here could do far more harm than good, Jethro."

The other man considered the situation. "Where is he now, Duck?" he asked.

"Abby's futon," was the answer. "I gave him a sedative along with his scheduled dose of painkillers and antibiotics. He should sleep for a few hours at least," advised the doctor.

Gibbs nodded, glad that his agent was finally getting some rest. "Why don't we see how he's doing when he wakes up?" he offered. He could tell by the pursed lips that his old friend did not agree. "He's sleeping, Duck. Let's let him sleep."

The doctor reluctantly agreed, but only because he didn't want to further disrupt the young man's rest. They parted ways with Ducky returning to Autopsy and Gibbs returning to his desk. He was just reaching for his phone to call Fornell when it rang. He picked it up.

"Yeah, Gibbs."

"Jethro," the voice on the other end intoned. "I've got a present for ya!"

Gibbs gave a small grin, "Yeah, Tobias? What sort of present?" he asked. He wanted to hear what the FBI had for him before he asked for anything more.

"How does Salvatore Iapalucci on a silver platter sound?" The FBI agent sounded extremely pleased. "The boys up in New York just picked him up in Ithaca. They're on their way down here with him now."

The grin got a little bit bigger. "Well, now, that is good news, Tobias! Who's gonna do the interrogating?" he asked.

"We both want him, Jethro. I figured we'd both question him." Gibbs could almost hear the smile over the phone. It was gone when the FBI agent asked his next question.

"How's DiNotso doing? I heard they roughed him up pretty bad."

Gibbs nodded as the smile left his face as well. "Yeah, they did," he answered quietly. Shaking his head, he continued, "But, he's gonna fine, Fornell. May take a while, but he'll be fine."

"Good," his friend nodded. "For some reason, I kinda like that kid. Don't you dare tell him I said that, though!" he warned.

Gibbs chuckled, "Don't worry, Tobias, your secret is safe with me," assured the former Marine. "When can I expect you and my present?" he asked.

Since the FBI agents from New York were driving Iapalucci down to Washington and wouldn't get there until sometime around midnight, it was decided that they'd drop him off at NCIS where he would be kept in a holding cell until the following morning. That would give both Fornell and Gibbs a chance to get some sleep before they started tag teaming the interrogation.

Before he hung up, Gibbs asked if the FBI had anything on William DiNozzo that would help them get an arrest warrant. He was disappointed to learn that NCIS had gotten closer to being able to arrest the power-monger in less than a week than the FBI had in two years.

Gibbs told his two junior agents to finish up any reports they were working on and wrap it up. He was calling it a day so they could concentrate on Iapalucci tomorrow. Within an hour, Ziva and McGee had gone home and Gibbs was down in the lab with Abby waiting for DiNozzo to wake up so he could take him home.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N**: Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. Holidays are over, vacation's over and it was back to the grind this week. Crazy busy at work, too, which doesn't leave much time for writing (or anything else for that matter). Two double shifts two days in a row with lots of physical labor and lots of driving – one night during a snow storm on barely passable roads – doesn't leave you with much energy either. Of course, 'crazy busy at' beats 'out of' when it comes to work these days, so I'm not complaining.

I'm still not sure I got the interrogation right, but…deadline's looming, so you'll have to let me know if it works or not.

Again, standard disclaimers apply. Sadly, I still don't own NCIS or it's characters. Not even a little.

* * *

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs stood inside the observation room watching through the two-way glass as a shackled Salvatore Iapalucci became more nervous and agitated. The door opened letting a few rays of light from the hallway spill into the darkened room before it closed again a second later and the NCIS agent was joined by FBI Special Agent Tobias Fornell.

"Jethro," the shorter FBI agent greeted him with a nod. "I thought we agreed to do this at 9AM," he said.

Gibbs never took his eyes off the man in the other room. "So what are you doing here so early?" he asked casually.

The other agent shot him a sideways glance. "I don't know," smirked Fornell. "Figured maybe you'd want a head start." He turned to watch the man in the interrogation room as well.

"Four years NYPD, New York State Police and the FBI have been trying to catch this guy." Fornell shook his head before turning to look incredulously at his friend. "NCIS comes into the picture and he turns up in custody in a week? What is it about NCIS that you guys have such better luck with these things?" he asked.

Gibbs returned the sideways glance. "Who said anything about luck, Fornell?" It was his turn to smirk.

The FBI agent just chuckled. "How long has he been in there?"

"Couple hours," Gibbs responded. "Let him sweat a while longer. You want some coffee?" he asked as he walked over to the door.

"What? You mean that sludge you pour down your throat?" The shorter man shuddered involuntarily.

Gibbs opened the door and stepped halfway through it. "You comin' or not, Tobias?" He held the door open as the FBI agent shook his head and passed through to the hallway. They spent the better part of the next hour drinking coffee and planning their attack on Iapalucci. Returning to Interrogation, Gibbs ensured that both Special Agent McGee and Officer David were standing by along with the A/V tech in the observation room, after which they sauntered into the room where the unfortunate Iapalucci sat.

"Hey!" Iapalucci called out as soon as the door opened. "It's about time! Ya know, I been sittin' here for like four freakin' hours already!" he complained. He couldn't sit still, though with the bindings he couldn't really move much, either. He got no sympathy from the agents.

Gibbs chuckled as he took a seat opposite Iapalucci. He glanced over at the other agent who had taken up a position leaning against the wall in the corner of the room. "Ya hear, that, Fornell? Sal-ly's feeling neglected." He drew out the extra syllable for effect.

Fornell smiled. "Aw, what's the matter, Sally? You in a hurry to meet your new boyfriend, Bubba?"

"What the hell're you talkin' about, huh? I ain't done nothin'" Iapalucci glared at the two federal agents. "What the hell is this place, anyway, huh? Why'd youse guys bring me to freakin' army base, huh? I didn't know you feds needed freakin' army guards protectin' 'ya!"

Gibbs laughed. "Ah-ha! He thinks those are Army guards on the base, Fornell! Oh, that's a good one!" He quickly stopped laughing and directed a glare at the thug sitting across the table. "Those are Marines, son. That's because you're on a Navy base. Maybe you noticed those big Navy ships parked out front. No? Do you know why you're on a Navy base, Sal-ly?" He drew out the last syllable again. When he got a blank look in response, he glanced again at the FBI agent in the corner before continuing.

"You're on a Navy base because you killed a Navy petty officer and you kidnapped and assaulted an NCIS special agent. Only reason the FBI is here is because their boys got to ya first." He took a sip of his ever-present coffee. "They can have you back when I'm done with you, too. But, I doubt there's gonna be much of ya left."

Iapalucci squirmed a little in his seat under Gibbs' angry glare. "Don't know what yer talkin' 'bout. I already told ya I ain't done nothin'." He had tried to keep his expression neutral, but Gibbs knew he had him when his eyes had widened at the mention of the assault. Iapalucci's mind was in overdrive and he silently cursed his boss for not letting them finish off the federal agent. _Damnit!_ He thought to himself_. I __**knew**__ they were gonna find that guy. Shoulda just killed the fucker!_

Gibbs smiled thinly, his eyes never losing their heat. They bore into Iapalucci's as he opened a file folder in front of him and pulled out several glossy photographs then carefully placed them one by one on the table. Some of the photos showed the remains of Tony's car while the rest detailed the abuses suffered by both Petty Officer Benson and Tony DiNozzo. It took more control than he'd expected for Gibbs to remain calm as the images brought to the fore all the emotions he'd felt upon seeing his agent for the first time after he'd been found. It took a lot to shake Leroy Jethro Gibbs, but the former Marine had been almost physically ill when he'd seen DiNozzo in the hospital. The photos brought it all back and he had to call on his inner reserves to keep from reaching out and throttling the bastard who had done this.

Fornell was watching the other agent carefully. Though he seemed to be leaning casually against the wall, he was ready to jump at the drop of a hat if necessary. He could tell Gibbs was having a hard time controlling the rage he felt toward their suspect. Not that he could blame his friend. Hell, DiNotso wasn't even his agent and he wanted to kill this smug piece of crap himself.

Iapalucci barely glanced at the photos. "I didn't kill nobody," he said, leaning back in his chair and shrugging, his eyes becoming two narrow slits through which he watched the man across the table. "You can't pin that on me."

"I don't need to," the NCIS agent replied. He continued to speak softly. "I've got you for kidnapping and assaulting – nah, **torturing** – a federal agent. Even if the judge doesn't give you the death penalty, you'll never see the light of day again. You'll be locked up in a federal prison for the rest of your life, Sally."

The suspect shook his head. "I didn't do nothin' to no fed," he argued. "And, you got nothin' that says I did."

"No?" asked the NCIS agent. "I've got your fingerprints inside my agent's car." He tapped one of the photos with a finger. "I've got your fingerprints and your DNA on a baseball bat," he pulled out a photograph of a Louisville Slugger from the warehouse crime scene and laid it on the table, "a bat that matches the bruises on my agent's body," he pointed to a couple of the photos of Tony's injuries, "a bat that was found in a warehouse where we found a chair." Gibbs pulled out another photograph from the warehouse, "A chair that has your fingerprints and my agent's fingerprints, a chair that also had bloody ropes tied to it." He pointed out the ropes in the photograph. "You want to take a guess as to whose blood was on those ropes? Do you Sally?"

Iapalucci started to sweat as he realized how much the federal agents actually had on him. The man was right; he was going to prison for a long time unless the company's lawyers could get him off. He sat up straight.

"I want a lawyer," he said.

Gibbs shook his head. "Lawyer's not gonna help you," he reasoned. "We've got your fingerprints **and** your DNA." The agent sorely wanted to say they had an eyewitness, too, but he had no desire to put DiNozzo in any more danger than he already was. Iapalucci had ties to the New York mob. They'd kill him in a heartbeat if it would prevent a trial or help secure an acquittal.

The younger man leaned into the table. "You think you have enough on me? Whaddya need me for?" He said it with a sneer, but Gibbs could see he was nervous.

The NCIS agent waited a moment before answering. "Joey. Santoro," he said.

Iapalucci shrugged his shoulders. "What about him?"

"I want him," declared Gibbs.

Again, Iapalucci shrugged. "So, go get him."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. I ain't his mother," the suspect sat back again.

Gibbs just stared and waited him out. After a few moments, the younger man began to squirm again.

"Seriously, man! I don't know where he is."

When a few more minutes of staring with no further response, the agent switched his focus.

"How about your boss?" he asked.

"My boss?"

"Yeah," replied the agent. "Your boss, the one who told you to kidnap a federal agent and beat him half to death." Gibbs' voice became softer and, like the glare that had become even more intense, more dangerous. When no response came, he asked again. "Who told you to pick up and torture _my_ agent?"

Iapalucci practically writhed under the two angry lasers directed at him, but still he did not speak. In the corner, Fornell was surprised the thug had the cojones to wait Gibbs out. Keeping a watchful eye on his old friend, though, he knew it was only a matter of time before the NCIS agent snapped. He could see Gibbs' breathing was becoming harder to control and his face was beginning to turn a shade of red to match the fury coursing through his veins. The FBI agent almost felt sorry for the poor schmuck who apparently didn't realize he was mere inches away from a killing machine ready to explode. While he had the utmost respect for his friend, Fornell suspected the man wasn't above taking a situation into his own hands and exacting his own code of justice, especially where his family was concerned. And he knew though DiNozzo may not be a blood relative, to the former Marine, he might as well have been.

"**HEY**!" Gibbs slammed a palm down on the table causing the suspect to jump in fear. He wasn't playing around anymore. "Your Boss!" he demanded. "I want his name! And, I want to know why he wanted you to kidnap and beat Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo! I want to know **NOW**!"

A flicker of recognition flashed in Iapalucci's eyes when he heard the name. It only confirmed what Gibbs already knew thanks to his forensic scientist, that William DiNozzo had ordered his son's beating. Though DNA had shown that William DiNozzo might not have been Tony's biological father, he still had raised the young man. Gibbs said nothing for a few moments as he waited his suspect out.

"DiNozzo. Vito DiNozzo," Iapalucci spoke quietly his eyes focused on the handcuffs on his wrists. "He said we should pick him up and work him over, see what NCIS knew about Benson and that Mercury thing." He looked up at the senior agent. "But, he never knew the guy's name. The boss just said he was a Navy cop."

Gibbs nodded. "You and who else?" he asked, though he already knew the answer. Abby had identified Santoro's fingerprints and DNA from the warehouse as well. Iapalucci gave him up pretty quickly once he realized that NCIS already had plenty of physical evidence to tie him to the crime, too.

The NCIS agent refocused on the bigger question. "Where's the Mercury component? Did Benson give it to you and Santoro?" he asked.

Iapalucci looked up at him. "I never met Benson," he shook his head. "Joey went to the drop, not me. I guess Benson didn't have it with him. The boss doesn't like being double-crossed. He had Joey take care of it," he explained.

"Where's the Mercury component?" he reiterated.

"I don't know," answered Iapalucci.

"Who's the buyer?"

"I don't know." When Gibbs raised his eyebrows in disbelief he continued, "Hey! The boss don't tell me everything, ya know!"

Gibbs nodded, "Yeah, you're just the hired hand" he derided. Gibbs frowned in disgust. After a few moments, he stood up and began shoveling the photographs back into the folder. Once that was done, he picked up the other folder and straightened up. He took a legal pad from one of the folders he held and tossed on the table along with a pen. "I want a full statement. Sign it when you're done." Without another word, he and Fornell walked out of the interrogation room.

Ziva and McGee who stated, "Boss, I've already put a BOLO out on William DiNozzo", met them in the hallway.

Gibbs nodded. "There's got to be a money trail between William DiNozzo and Santoro and Iapalucci. Find it!" he ordered and turned to the Mossad officer. "Ziva, call down to Legal and get me an arrest warrant. I want William DiNozzo in interrogation. Yesterday!" he growled.

The young woman acknowledged the order with a nod and the four split up. The two younger people went down the hall toward the squad room while the other two went the opposite way toward the back elevator. They now had a suspect implicating the powerful businessman and Gibbs needed to inform the director of the warrant request. He'd let the director hash it out with the FBI later as to when they could interrogate Iapalucci and who would get to prosecute him first.

* * *

Tony DiNozzo woke with a start; he'd been doing that a lot lately. He sat up and blinked several times to clear his vision and found himself in a darkened office. He sort of recognized it, but something seemed off. Placing his hands on either side of him, he jumped a bit as he heard a loud fart. Startled again, he glanced down at the stuffed animal that had made the offending noise. _Bert?_ he thought. _Abby's office. I'm in Abby's office_. But still, something just seemed not right. He stood and walked the few steps to the door separating the office from the lab. Looking out through the window, he saw the Goth scientist dancing from one machine to the next, her head bouncing obviously to the music coming through the headphones she wore. She had her back to him as he walked over to her and touched her arm.

"AH! Tony! You really shouldn't sneak up on people!" she admonished after she'd spun around and recognized him. She took a good look at him as she pushed the headphones down around her neck. He still looked way passed exhausted and she could see the pinched eyes and lips that indicated he was in pain. She looked at the clock on the wall.

"Whoa! Tony, you missed your last dose of painkillers and antibiotics. Gibbs'll kill me if I don't take care you!" she worried. She marched him back into the office and sat him back down on the futon. Reaching for a bottle of water and the two pill bottles on the shelf behind him, she placed the water in Tony's hand and carefully poured out the required number of pills before placing those in his other hand. Once she'd replaced the pill bottles back on the shelf, she took the water back from him and removed the cap, placing it back in his hand when she was done.

When Tony hadn't moved a muscle for a couple minutes, she gently took the hand holding the pills and raised it up toward his mouth, followed by the hand holding the water. Making sure he'd actually swallowed the pills, she sat down next to her friend.

"You okay, Tony?" she asked. "Do you need anything?" She jumped up quickly. "Wait! Your antibiotics need to be taken with food! We need to get you some food!" She started to take off her lab coat and reach for her purse when Tony grabbed her arm.

"Abby, it's okay," he said. "I'm really not hungry."

"But, you need to eat. Otherwise, the pills will make you sick," Abby tried to convince him.

"Don't think I could be any sicker, Abs," he muttered under his breath. He said it so quietly she almost didn't hear it. She sat down again and took him in her arms.

"It's the whole thing with your father, isn't it?" she asked as she guided his head onto her shoulder. Tony leaned into the embrace and closed his eyes.

"Not my father," he murmured into her neck. "Don't know who my father is. Don't even know who _I_ am anymore." His voice caught in his throat and he swallowed hard, blinking rapidly to keep the tears he felt forming in his eyes from falling. _God! Why am I such a wreck?_ he thought to himself. _It's not like I had any kind of real relationship with the guy! Why does it bother me so much to find out he's _not_ my father?_

"I'll tell you who you are," Abby said firmly. "You are _Very_ Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, one of my very best friends who has the heart of lion, a very hard bod and a very solid sense of right and wrong; a man who is so altruistic that he comes to the aid of others without even thinking; a man who had the courage and fortitude to dive into a cold, polluted river and pull out not one, but two people and single-handedly perform CPR and resuscitate both of them, thus saving both their lives – and after surviving antibiotic-resistant pneumonic plague, mind you! Oh, and you have a very well-developed sense of charm, panache, and humor while being able to quote more movie references than should be humanly possible." She felt his slight smile as he burrowed his face deeper into her neck and it made her smile as well.

"Well, I guess when you put it that way…" his voice trailed off as he allowed his friend to envelope him in her protective cocoon.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N**: Okay, it wasn't until after I posted the last chapter that I realized I made a glaring mistake. Probie Snacks to whoever figures out what it was!

Again, I'm not entirely pleased the interrogation scenes, but it's getting late and I have to get up pretty early for work, so hopefully this meets with your approval.

* * *

Gibbs found Tony in Abby's office, wrapped in the young woman's arms. Once again, his heart went out to his senior agent. He really had no idea what the younger man was feeling, but whatever it was, he figured it couldn't be good.

"Hey," he said softly to get their attention. Tony extricated himself from Abby's embrace and looked up at him.

"Come on," Gibbs nodded toward the door and moved so they could pass him.

"Where're we going, Boss?" Tony asked as he slowly stood up. He was getting stronger with each passing day and was thankful he no longer felt nauseous every time he stood. He still felt dizzy if he moved too fast, but he'd learned to take it easy and with measured movements, he made his way to the door. At least he was getting stronger physically. Emotionally was another story entirely. One minute he'd be fine and the next he'd feel like he was coming apart at the seams.

"It's lunchtime. Since I know you haven't eaten yet, I'm taking you to lunch."

Abby gave him a sheepish smile. "I forgot to wake him up to give him his pills so he just took them a little while ago," she said. "And you're right; he hasn't eaten yet, either. Sorry."

Gibbs nodded. "It's okay, Abs," he assured her. "You comin'?" he asked as he, too, stepped through the doorway. She smiled and grabbed her purse before joining two of her favorite men, taking each of them by an arm.

A little over an hour later they returned from lunch, Tony carrying a small carryout box containing a half-eaten buffalo burger and curly fries. He'd tried to eat the whole thing, but after eating half of it, had felt like he would throw up if he took another bite. Truthfully, his appetite had taken a nosedive in the last twenty-four hours and he was lucky to finish what he had.

The trio entered the elevator in the main lobby. When it stopped, Abby gave Tony a quick hug before stepping out into the hallway by her lab. Gibbs gave him a pointed look as the doors closed and the elevator continued to the bullpen. "You're not gonna go lay down again?" he asked. He'd noticed the younger man turn a light shade of green while eating.

Tony shook his head slightly. "No, I rested all morning, Boss. I want to do something. I want to help catch these guys," he said quietly.

It was Gibbs' turn to shake his head. "Already caught one of 'em," he said, turning back toward the elevator doors.

"I know," Tony replied. "But, I want to help catch the rest of them." He paused, "and I thought I heard Ziva saying you still hadn't found the Mercury component."

"Nope," Gibbs pressed his lips together, "but we will."

At that point, the elevator doors opened and deposited them in the squad room. As they walked to their respective desks, it wasn't lost on Tony that the older man seemed to deliberately, though discreetly, slow his stride so that the two men entered their team's area together.

Both of his teammates looked up and smiled at the senior field agent, happy to see him looking stronger and moving easier.

"Hey, Tony," McGee greeted him warmly.

"It is good to have you back," agreed Ziva. "It has not been the same around here without your incestuous movie references." The three men turned and stared at her, confusion marking all their faces. "What? Did I get that wrong?" she asked.

"Uh, I think you mean incessant, Ziva," McGee corrected her. "Incestous refers to carnal acts and inbreeding."

"Oh. OH!" Ziva exclaimed. "And incessant?" she asked.

"Unceasing, never-ending, unrelenting," Tony answered her as he carefully sat down at his desk.

Ziva snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "Yes, that is what I meant," she smiled, "incessant!"

"Ya know, incestuous is also defined as abusive," Gibbs growled, "which is what I'm gonna be if you don't get back to work!" Inwardly, he was as happy to see Tony back at his desk as his two junior agents, but there was still work to be done.

Ziva turned to face the lead agent, a piece of paper in one hand, "I have the arrest warrant for William DiNozzo. No hits yet on the BOLO."

Tony's head shot up at the name and he had to close his eyes to quell the nausea caused by the quick movement.

"McGee?" Gibbs turned to the youngest member of the team. "You find anything in Iapalucci's financial records that ties him to William DiNozzo?"

The young man shook his head. "Other than the fact that Iapalucci worked for one of the companies William DiNozzo's holding company owns, no, Boss, nothing." Gibbs scowled. "But, um, I've only been working on it for a couple of hours, Boss. I'm sure something will turn up!" He turned back to his computer.

"Hey, Probie," Tony turned his head slowly to face him. "Did you find anything that could indicate a link between Mid-whatever that company was, JMD Industries and a possible buyer?" he asked.

Again, McGee shook his head. "Nope. The only financial link I found between Iapalucci and JMD Industries was his paycheck from the Mid-Atlantic Seafood Company and all the financial transactions between Mid-Atlantic and JMD appear to be legit."

"Boss, did you get a subpoena for my f-father's corporate records?" He hesitated slightly as his brain tried to correct his use of the term 'father.' He continued, "There's got to be something there that'll tell us who he's in bed with."

Gibbs turned to McGee who shook his head as he picked up his phone. "Boss, I'm sorry, I got so wrapped up in Iapalucci's financial records I didn't even think about William DiNozzo's."

"I am sorry, too, Gibbs. I did not think of it either," Ziva apologized as well.

"McGee," Gibbs said, "put the phone down. You really think William DiNozzo's lawyers are gonna just give us the records? Hell, the FBI's been trying for a year to get their hands on them!"

Tim McGee hung up his phone and looked at his boss, plainly confused. "But, Boss," he started, "without a subpoena, we'll never get the records," he said. Gibbs just stared at him for a moment. "I suppose I could hack into JMD's servers and look for the financial information," he said slowly.

"What about William DiNozzo's personal financial records?" asked Ziva.

Tony shook his head slightly. "No. No way would my father risk his own money." He ignored the tiny voice in his head screaming _He's_ not _your father!_ "He'd create a dummy corporation to handle any shady deals." He looked over at the lead agent. "Do we know when the Mercury project started? It would give us a place to start looking for any new corporations among JMD's holdings."

"That project has been ongoing for about three years," said NCIS Director Jenny Shepard as she turned into the Major Crimes Response Team bullpen just then. "The prototype was only recently completed for testing purposes, though, about six months ago," she informed the team.

"Who knew about the prototype?" Gibbs asked.

"Only certain groups within the Navy, Marine Corps and ADI," replied the director. "It hasn't been publicly announced that the prototype is ready for testing. Standard procedure is to announce a new system only as it becomes ready for deployment," she said.

"Ziva, look into ADI. Find out if there's any connection between them and JMD Industries or William DiNozzo," Gibbs ordered. He turned to the other two agents. "Tony, work with McGee to identify any possible buyers with a similar connection."

The four worked in near silence for the next several hours. McGee had no trouble hacking into the JMD servers; apparently, the company still hadn't plugged the hole that had allowed him in the previous week. At one point, Abby even came up from the lab to help them look for any possibly hinky connections.

It was nearing 1900 hours and Gibbs was getting ready to call it a day when Director Shepard returned to the squad room. "PFC Rifken just turned himself in to MPs at the main gate," she stated. "And, he says he knows who has the Mercury component. He's being brought up to interrogation now." The four members of the MCRT looked up at the director, for the first time in nearly a week feeling hopeful that they might soon be able to close this case.

Within thirty minutes Tony, McGee and Ziva were in the observation room, each of them on tenterhooks, watching as Gibbs sat down across the table from PFC David Rifken.

Gibbs sat back in his chair, legs crossed and his hands resting in his lap, a notepad in his left hand and a pen in his right. He gazed at the young man across from him, noting the discomfort as the man unconsciously tapped his foot.

"PFC Rifken," Gibbs addressed the Marine in a soft voice.

"Yes, sir," the young man responded, his head snapping up and looking directly at the NCIS agent. Gibbs saw determination as well as fear in the brown eyes.

"A lot of people have been looking for you," the agent shook his head, though his voice remained calm and quiet.

"Yes, sir, I imagine so," Rifken nodded. His foot continued to tap a nervous cadence.

"You know why?"

Again, Rifken nodded. "Yes, sir. Mercury," he said. He looked down at his hands for a moment before looking back up at the agent. "Chad, um, Petty Officer Benson, he tried to steal it. I caught him taking it. Told him it was a bad idea."

"Why did he take it?" Gibbs asked.

"Why else?" Rifken responded. "Money. I knew he was into sports betting and that he kept losing on the spread. He told me he was in pretty deep to some New York guys. He said they were mob, but I wasn't sure." He hesitated a moment before continuing, "At least, I wasn't sure until they killed him, you know?"

In the observation room Tony said softly, "Yep, sports book," shaking his head. "It's easy enough to pick the winners and the losers, but the point spread'll get you."

Gibbs stared at the private. "That why you think they killed him?" he asked, "because he owed them for gambling losses?"

Rifken looked down again and swallowed hard before answering. "I thought so, at first," he said sotto voce. "Is that why they killed him?" he asked.

"Might've been part of it," Gibbs allowed. "But, it also had something to do with the fact that he didn't bring Mercury to them like he apparently planned to." His gaze hardened. "You wouldn't know anything about _that_, would you?" he asked. The young man didn't need to voice an answer; it was in his eyes and his face as he winced and looked up a the ceiling.

He nodded slowly. "I distracted him and took the Mercury component when he wasn't looking, switched it with a fake one."

"You thought you'd make all that money yourself and to hell with Benson, that it, Private?" Gibbs asked, his voice as hard as his eyes.

"No, sir!" Rifken was adamant. "I just didn't want to see it getting into the wrong hands, sir," he explained. "Chad, he would've given it to those guys as payment for his gambling debt. Who knows who they would've sold it to." Again, Gibbs saw the glint of determination in the young man's eyes. "I wasn't gonna let that happen, sir."

"Why didn't you turn it over to your superior and report Benson?" Gibbs asked.

"I didn't want him to get into trouble, sir," replied the Marine. "Chad was a good guy. He was just stupid when it came to taking bets on college basketball."

"Why didn't you turn yourself in and return it when you learned Benson was dead?"

The private looked Gibbs in the eye. "I was scared," he said simply. "I thought they might've killed him because of the debt, but I also knew it was possible they killed him because he didn't give them what they wanted. I didn't know if Chad told them about me."

Gibbs considered this for a moment. "A highly trained Marine, scared of a couple of thugs?" he said incredulously.

The young man paused, looking down again for a moment and when he looked back up, Gibbs could find no deception in the brown eyes or the body language. "When I heard how they killed him, I panicked. I figured it was time to go to ground, you know? Find some hole to crawl into until it all passed over."

"Where's Mercury now?" Gibbs asked. He watched the young man warily as the private reached into a pocket and pulled out a set of car keys and placed them on the table between them.

"Trunk of my car," he said calmly, "taped to the wheel well under the carpeting."

Gibbs took the keys and rose to his feet. "I'll have an agent get your statement and read you your Article 13 rights," he told him. He stopped and looked down at the young Marine. "You realize your military career is probably over," he said softly.

Rifken looked him in the eye again. "Yes, sir," he replied in an equally soft voice. Then, his voice a little louder and stronger, he added, "I'm prepared to take whatever punishment the Corps deems appropriate, sir."

The agent nodded and then stepped out the door, closing it behind him. He met his three junior agents in the hallway.

"Ziva, take his statement and then take him back to holding." Officer David nodded and turned to go to her desk to get a legal pad and pen. Gibbs turned to the two younger men.

"Did you find anything useful in JMD's financial records?" he asked.

McGee shook his head. "Not yet, Boss. There are a lot of corporations under the JMD umbrella, including a lot of shells. It's going to take some time to go through them all," he answered.

"Just don't get caught hacking," Gibbs reminded him.

"Right, Boss," McGee nodded. "I've been covering my tracks with a series of bots that…"

"He really doesn't want to know, McGoogle," Tony held up a hand to stop the younger man. "And, frankly, neither do I. Let's just find the freaking buyer and wrap this case up."

Gibbs looked closely at his senior agent. The pinched lines around his eyes and mouth were back, indicating the younger man was in pain again and he was once again leaning heavily against the wall. Gibbs checked his watch. It was now nearing 2100 hours and he realized his injured agent had once again missed his scheduled dose of medications. Ducky was not going to be happy with them.

"Okay, wrap it up for tonight," he told them just as Ziva rounded the corner. "As soon as Ziva's done with Rifken, you can go home. We'll start fresh in the morning."

The next day found all four members of the MCRT at their desks, hard at work looking for any kind of connection between JMD Industries and anyone who might pass as a possible buyer for a new weapon guidance system. It was tedious work and the team was mostly silent throughout the morning. Every so often, the other three would glance up somewhat worriedly at their injured partner. He'd been the most silent of the group, simply staring at his computer screen for most of the morning, which was decidedly unnatural and left an awkward tension in the squad room.

Gibbs phone rang just before noon, shattering the quiet and breaking the tension. He picked it up on the second ring. "Yeah, Gibbs," he paused, listening to the voice on the other end. "Where is he now?" he asked. "Got it. Thanks."

He looked up at the rest of his team, first McGee, then DiNozzo and then David, his eyes moving back to and finally resting on DiNozzo who had not looked up at the sound of the phone ringing, as had the other two.

"That was Fornell," he informed them. "The FBI's New York office picked up William DiNozzo this morning." Finally, his senior agent looked up at the last name. It was obvious to Gibbs that the younger man was struggling with his emotions while trying to appear the opposite. He continued, "They're flying him back to D.C. now."

McGee and Ziva looked at DiNozzo, then at each other. Both were wondering just how he would react to seeing William DiNozzo, the man who up until two days ago he'd thought was his father, the man who had raised him and then ordered two thugs to beat and torture him. What would he do? They looked at their boss and could see he was wondering the same thing.

"When…" Tony didn't finish the question.

"A couple of hours," Gibbs answered him softly. He was considering what he should do with his senior agent, given the situation. He could either allow the younger man to observe the interrogation, not knowing what would come of it or how it might affect him. On the other hand, he could send him down to Abby's lab to rest while the interrogation took place. He really didn't have the right to keep DiNozzo from the man if Tony wanted to see or speak with him. However, he didn't want to see his agent hurt any more than he already was.

"Keep looking for connections," he commanded as he stood up and walked out of the bullpen. He was going to need coffee.

Tony watched him walk all the way to the elevator. After hearing the elevator doors close between them, he shifted his gaze to Ziva's desk, seeing her watching him closely.

"What?" he asked, forcing a smile and glancing down at his shirt. "Did I spill something?"

"How could you have spilled something, Tony?" asked Ziva, "you haven't eaten anything all morning."

"True," he agreed. He opened his mouth to say something else, but then closed it and turned back to his computer. He'd gone through about half of the list of corporations McGee had given him to check out and his head was starting to hurt. He started stretching in his chair just as his phone rang. He reached out and grabbed it, but before he could speak, he heard Abby's voice through the transceiver.

"_Tony! It's after noon, have you taken your pills yet?"_ He smiled at the obvious concern. He could always count on Abby to mother him when he needed it. "No, Abs, not yet," he responded.

"_Well, do you want to take them now and we can go get something to eat?"_ she asked. "Sure, Abs. What did you have in mind?"

She started to answer, but stopped to say, _"Oh, wait! Boss man's here. I'll have to call you back."_ And with that the call ended and he was left holding the transceiver to his ear, listening to a dial tone. He hung up the phone and looked up to find Ziva watching him again.

"Seriously, Ziva," he said, "What?"

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "I am just worried, that is all," she admitted.

Tony tilted his head slightly, "About?" He asked, drawing out the word.

Sighing, she replied, "About you. I cannot imagine what must be going through that head of yours, hearing that your father –," he opened his mouth and she held her hand up to stop him speaking. "For all intents and purposes, he is your father; he is the man who raised you – that your father is coming here to be interrogated by Gibbs after all that has happened to you." She sighed again, searching for the words to convey her thoughts. "I just cannot imagine what you must be thinking right now, what you must be feeling," she said compassionately. "I do not wish to see you hurt any farther."

"Further," McGee corrected without thinking. "Farther connotes distance while further is a measure of degree. You should have used further."

"Very good, McGee," Tony spoke in his best Sean Connery impersonation. "Nice Finding Forrester reference," he smiled. He looked back and forth between his two partners, noting the confusion on both their faces. "Come on," he said. "Finding Forrester? The movie starring Sean Connery, written by Mike Rich, directed by Guy Van Sant?" He continued when he saw their expressions had not changed. "Okay, Rob Brown plays this inner city kid who gets a scholarship to this elite prep school because he does really well on standardized tests and he's good at basketball. He befriends Sean Connery who turns out to be a reclusive best-selling author who helps him find his own writing voice. F. Murray Abraham plays this bitter, self-absorbed literature teacher who…" He didn't get to complete his synopsis as Gibbs breezed back into the squad room, a fresh cup of coffee in hand.

"DiNozzo!" he barked. "Abby's waiting for you down in her lab." He sat down at his desk and looked over at his senior agent. "Go!" he waved his hand dismissively, watching as the younger man stood up a little too fast and had to grab his desk to steady himself momentarily before walking slowly toward the elevator.

Ziva turned to McGee. "I do not understand that movie reference," she said, "and the difference between further and farther."

"I know; it's a fairly sophisticated distinction. A lot of writers misuse both terms," McGee explained. "I have myself at times." He shrugged and they both got back to work.

A little over two hours later found them standing in an observation room watching William DiNozzo and his attorney as they sat waiting impatiently for the interrogation to begin.

"Boss, is Tony going to be coming up here?" McGee asked tentatively.

Gibbs shook his head, a small smile pulling up on corner of this mouth. "Abby's got it under control," he said. He knew she had taken the senior field agent for a nice, long lunch and had plans to lock him in her office for some more rest and relaxing aromatherapy. He glanced at the other two. They both looked relieved that Tony would not be subjecting himself to further anxiety by observing this interrogation. The sound and video technician signaled that he was ready to go and Gibbs slipped out of the darkened room armed with the same folders he'd taken with him to interrogate Salvatore Iapalucci.

Stepping into the room, Gibbs projected an air of authority borne of his years in the Marine Corps. He stood by the table and slapped the folders onto it loudly. His eyes bore into William DiNozzo and although his demeanor was outwardly calm, his insides were boiling with rage, a rage that reflected in his eyes.

Before he could say anything, however, the man sitting next to William DiNozzo, obviously his lawyer, stood up. "Special Agent Gibbs?" he asked.

"Sam Warner," he introduced himself. "I am Mr. DiNozzo's attorney and I think you should know that the FBI agents have already read my client his rights." He smiled thinly. "Though, the agents failed to mention what evidence you might have to cause you to arrest him in the middle of a board meeting."

"Evidence?' Gibbs asked, his eyes flitting briefly toward the lawyer, quickly appraising him before returning to his suspect. "Well, let's see, we have your client's DNA in a room where a federal agent was held against his will, brutally assaulted and tortured. We also have a confession from one of the men who assaulted the agent placing your client at the scene during the assault and stating that your client ordered the kidnapping and assault. How does that sound for starters?" he asked with a calm he did not feel. He consciously slowed his breathing, knowing he needed to hold his anger and repulsion at the man sitting across from him in check. William DiNozzo had not reacted in the least as Gibbs had listed the evidence

William DiNozzo snorted derisively. "DNA? I highly doubt that!" he sneered.

"William, please!" The attorney put a hand on DiNozzo's arm, "let me handle this." He turned back to the NCIS agent.

"You've arrested my client," he said. "You say you have evidence, fine. You say he ordered an assault on a federal agent, fine. My client has the right to know the name of his accuser."

Gibbs replied to the attorney, never taking his eyes off William DiNozzo's face. "Your client ordered Salvatore Iapalucci and Joseph Santoro to kidnap and assault NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo." The fact that the elder DiNozzo sat stone faced and did not react at all only served to infuriate the lead agent all the more. Placing both arms on the table, he leaned down so that his face was mere inches from DiNozzo's.

"How could you order someone to kidnap and beat your own son?" he growled into the other man's ear. That got a response. William DiNozzo turned to face the agent.

"Anthony is no son of mine," he sneered. "He's too weak to be a DiNozzo; always has been."

"William!" his lawyer beseeched him. "I must insist that you keep silent."

DiNozzo ignored his attorney's advice. "If you had my DNA like you say, you would know that. I may have raised him, but Anthony is not my son! He is a DiNozzo in name only."

"Why did you raise him if you knew he wasn't yours?"

"William, do not answer any more of these questions!"

"Because I loved his mother. Because she begged me on her deathbed to raise him as my own, and God knows I tried," DiNozzo stated, shaking his head. "But, there's only so much one can do with such a weakling!"

Gibbs hadn't moved a muscle and was still leaning into the other man's personal space. For his part, DiNozzo had not backed down either. But, now it was Gibbs' turn to sneer.

"You obviously don't know him, then," he said. "Because the Anthony DiNozzo _I_ know is one of the strongest people I've ever met. If you had tried to raise him properly, _you_ would know _that_. I can count on one hand the number of people I trust with my life and Anthony DiNozzo is at the top of that list. And it sure as hell isn't because he's weak. It's because I know he's strong enough to take whatever is thrown at him and still get the job done."

Gibbs paused, taking in the clenched jaw and reddening skin of the man facing him. Obviously, William DiNozzo did not appreciate being told off.

"You don't know him at all," Gibbs said with quiet certainty. Then he stood back up, gathered the folders, walked to the door, and turned the knob. As he pulled it open he said, "I'll have a guard take you to a holding cell." Then he turned to the lawyer and said, "You can talk to the judge at his arraignment."

As he stepped through the door he looked back at the elder DiNozzo who still sat fuming at the table.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Well, believe it or not, we've reached the end which may seem a little rushed, I'll admit. If so, please accept my apologies. My only explanation is that my self-imposed deadline's up, it's been a long day, tomorrow promises to be even longer and I'm having trouble staying awake for some reason. Since I already know I won't have time to post anything tomorrow, this will have to suffice. I hope the ending doesn't seem too sappy or out of character. I may at some point come back and flesh out this chapter a bit more, maybe not. I do have some other plotlines floating around in my head that I plan to put down on paper, too, so look for more from me in the future!

I want to thank everyone who read this and especially those who reviewed or added it to your Favorites list. You all kept me going and I appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks!

Standard disclaimers apply: I still don't own NCIS or its characters and to date I still haven't made any money on this sordid little tale.

* * *

Abby Sciuto guided her unsuspecting charge into the small office adjoining the ballistics lab. She smirked as the memory of another unsuspecting charge being led into this very room for the very same purpose popped into her head. The Goth forensic scientist almost giggled at the thought, but stopped herself. _Wouldn't want the unsuspecting charge to become suspicious now, would we? _she thought to herself.

Everything was ready. She had made sure of that before inviting her friend out for a nice relaxing lunch. She'd driven to a small Italian eatery about an hour away where they could look out the windows and people-watch as they were wont to do at times. They had lingered over their pasta and tiramisu making up stories about the people they saw. They had laughed and for a brief time, both the lines of worry and the controlled mask had fallen away and she could see her friend, the real friend that too often stayed hidden from her and the rest of the world. The conversation on the way back had turned serious, though, and Abby was glad she'd had the foresight to prepare the 'treatment' as she'd come to call it.

She guided her blindfolded friend to the chair, gently pushing on his shoulders until he was seated, and then knelt down to secure the handcuffs that were attached to the table leg (which in turn was bolted to the floor). As Abby lit the aromatherapy candles and explained the purpose of each one, the blindfold was taken off and her friend tried to stand, only to be stopped by the aforementioned handcuffs.

"Abby!"

"You need to relax, Tony," Abby told him, speaking as she would to a very young child, as she slowly backed out of the room. Closing the door and locking it from the outside in case he did manage to get out of the handcuffs, she waved and smiled sweetly.

"I'll see you in an hour, Tony!" she told him.

"Abby!" Tony tried to get her attention as she walked through the ballistics lab to the main lab beyond. "Abby! I have work to do!" he yelled. Realizing she wasn't coming back, he leaned back in the chair and gazed helplessly at the ceiling. Within moments, he was sneezing thanks to the delicate scents of vanilla, lavender and God knew what else wending their way through his nasal passages. _Great_, he thought, _in an hour I'll have the mother of all sinus headaches on top of everything else!_

Abby did come back, about thirty minutes later, to find Tony hopelessly congested and miserable. He had quickly given up on breathing through his nose, his throat now so dry he could barely speak without coughing and his eyes were now puffy and watery. Abby felt horrible and couldn't stop apologizing. _How could you forget about his _stupid_ allergies!_ she berated herself. She swore repeatedly that she'd make it up to him as she led him carefully to Autopsy so Ducky could give him something for his sinuses. Unfortunately, Dr. Mallard was unable to do give him any medication due to the painkillers he was already taking. However, he did give Tony an old-fashioned breathing treatment by having him sit with a towel and over his head over a vaporizer filled with Vick's vapor-rub. He stayed like that for about fifteen minutes before taking the towel off his head for the same amount of time. He repeated the treatment another three times before Ducky would let him up. Tony did breathe a bit easier after that, though he smelled like menthol for the rest of the afternoon.

He'd gone back up to the bullpen after the breathing treatment to find his team at their desks, still working hard. He sat down at his desk and glanced at the clock on his desk phone. It was nearing 1700 hours. He looked over at Gibbs, surprised at the hour and confused at the fact that his boss was sitting at his desk instead of ripping a particular someone a new one in interrogation. _Why isn't he in interrogation?_ Tony thought to himself. _Maybe _he_ hasn't gotten here yet. Or, maybe he's already here and Boss is letting him stew. Boss does like to do that, he thought. Or., maybe he's already finished the interrogation. _That thought gave the senior field agent pause. _No. No, boss wouldn't interrogate my father _(he's NOT your father! screamed the voice in his head) _without me there to observe._ He looked over at the other two in the squad room – they were working as if nothing were amiss – and then back to Gibbs. _Would he?_

"Uh, Boss?" he hesitated, not sure exactly what to say. "Shouldn't you be in interrogation?"

Gibbs did not look up, "Nope. Don't think so, DiNozzo," he replied.

"But, what about…" the question died on his lips as his boss did look at him this time; it was a look he knew well, one that said a head slap would be on its way if he kept it up. Deciding perhaps it was best if he just got back to work, he logged back into his computer and started searching where he'd left off before lunch.

Gibbs had noticed his senior agent's return and, though he didn't say anything, was a little surprised that the man looked a bit worse for wear. He wondered just what Abby had done. He figured it was about time he got some more coffee as well as a sitrep. He got up and started for the elevator, slowing slightly as he passed Tony's desk to take a good look the younger man. He looked like he'd been crying and that got his attention. It wasn't until he had passed the desk that the smell hit him and it almost made him stop dead in his tracks. _Why does my senior agent smell like a Hall's cough drop?_ he wondered. Shaking his head, he decided to get the coffee for himself and a Caf-Pow! for Abby and then find out what was up with his senior agent.

He found the forensic tech sitting forlornly in her office, staring at her computer screen; she was still beating herself up for causing Tony's allergies to flare up and she didn't even take the liquid caffeine when offered.

"Hey, Abs," Gibbs spoke quietly. Never one to beat around the bush, he asked, "What happened with Tony? You two enjoy your lunch?"

The young woman did not look up at him. "Lunch was great," she said in a decidedly un-Abby-like monotone. "We went to that little Italian place we like that's really too far away to go to for lunch. We had fun people-watching and the food was great." Her voice did not change.

"So what happened?" Gibbs gently asked as he set her drink down in front of her. "He looks like he was crying. Was he?" He paused, waiting for her to answer. When she didn't he tried again. "Abby?"

"He wasn't crying," she said, still in a monotone. She paused a moment before continuing. "I'm sorry, Gibbs! I just wanted to help him relax, but I forgot about his allergies and the aromatherapy didn't work. It made everything worse! I left him alone for a little while so he could relax and when I came back he was all congested and he couldn't breathe right and, and, and it's all my fault, Gibbs!" It all had come out in a rush of words and before he knew it, Abby had thrown herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and narrowly avoiding spilling his coffee down his shirt.

"I'm sorry, Gibbs!" she murmured. "I'm so, so, sorry!" He wrapped an arm around her and assured her it would be okay, that Tony would survive. After all, it wasn't the first time his allergies had gotten the best of him and it probably wouldn't be the last. He calmed her down and turned to leave, only to turn back again a second later.

"Why does he smell like a walking cough drop?" he asked.

Abby chuckled, albeit sheepishly, "Ducky made him inhale from a vaporizer full of Vick's vapor rub."

Gibbs smiled and nodded. _Makes sense_, he thought as he turned back toward the door. He returned to the squad room and the four-member team continued to look for clues that would link William DiNozzo and a potential buyer of arms.

Two hours later, Tony finally found an anomaly among the corporations his father's holding company owned. It turned out to be a shell company with direct ties to another shell company in Ireland that was connected to an arms dealer known as Grace O'Malley. The principle behind the shell under JMD was Tony's uncle, Mario DiNozzo. The team felt they had their connection to a potential buyer. It would take a great deal more legwork to prove it, but at least they had something. Gibbs had just started handing out assignments when the director entered the squad room.

"Jethro," she greeted him, "I just got off the phone with SecNav. He says that with Mercury back in the Navy's possession, it's no longer necessary to pursue this case any further. He considers it closed," she paused before continuing, "I've been ordered to turn over all case evidence and documentation to the FBI and Justice. Of course, we are still free to pursue the kidnapping and assault case against Salvatore Iapalucci and William DiNozzo."

"Director, we just connected a shell company owned by JMD Industries to another shell corporation owned by a suspected arms dealer. Isn't that cause for us to investigate?" Gibbs asked testily.

"Of course it is, Jethro," the director responded, "but as of now it is not a priority. Work it as a cold case." She turned to leave before stating, "I've taken your team off active rotation for now. You're at least half a man short." She gave the team lead a pointed look and then went back up the stairs to her office. It took a moment or two for what she'd said to sink in.

"Wait," McGee started, "so if we're off active rotation, that means" his voice trailed off.

"As of now, we're working cold cases until further notice," Gibbs completed the younger man's thought. "Starting with this one," he added.

Gibbs told them to finish any outstanding reports related to either the Mercury case or the kidnapping and assault case. Once that was done, they could leave for the day. It had been a long, difficult case and they had all worked extremely hard. He decided they deserved this one little break.

The next day they picked up where they left off running down the connection between JMD Industries and the arms dealer Grace O'Malley. During the course of the day they learned that William DiNozzo had been released on his own recognizance pending a yet to be scheduled trial. He returned to New York without speaking with or even seeing the young man he'd raised. McGee gave Abby a copy of the interrogation video with audio, which she promptly cleaned up and after watching it herself, made sure that Tony saw it, too. She knew that he needed to hear what Gibbs had said about him.

* * *

Anthony DiNozzo lay awake in his bed staring at the ceiling. Though he was beyond exhausted, completely drained mentally, physically and emotionally, he found that sleep just wouldn't come. It had been a couple of days since he'd learned that his parentage wasn't what he'd thought it was. But, those days had been filled with purpose – the purpose of finding and apprehending the would-be buyer of the Navy's most advanced weapons guidance system. Once he'd gotten over the initial shock of finding out he wasn't really his father's son, he'd been assailed by conflicting thoughts and emotions.

He thought about how his family had treated him while he was growing up, how both his parents had turned to alcohol for whatever reasons they had. Though he'd never known for sure, deep down, he'd always thought that families were not supposed to act the way his did.

He had tried to get away from these thoughts by pouring his energy into the case. Now, as he lay in the quiet, darkened room, it was all he could think about. What would his life be like if he _had_ been his father's biological son? What if his real father had raised him? Hell, who _was_ is real father? He kept thinking about everything he'd gone through as a child. How it seemed both his parents had resented his very existence. He wondered if he had been William DiNozzo's biological child, would it have made a difference? Would he have treated his son differently, with more interest or affection? Tony knew he'd never know for sure, but he liked to think it would have made a difference.

He heard the bedroom door open and watched as the light from the hallway moved slowly across the ceiling.

"You still here, Boss?" he asked quietly.

"Well, yeah, DiNozzo. You didn't think I'd drop you off and just leave, did ya?" Gibbs gently chided from the doorway.

Tony felt a pang of something he couldn't quite identify. "You don't have to stay, Boss," he said. "I'll be fine."

"I know you will. And, I know I don't _have_ to stay," the older man responded.

Gibbs watched the younger man for a moment. He was just about to close the door when he heard his senior field agent's quiet voice.

"Boss?" Tony asked hesitantly. "Can I ask you a personal question? Hypothetically?"

"Sure," Gibbs nodded though he knew the other man probably couldn't see it.

"If you had a kid that you found out wasn't really yours, would you treat them any differently?" Tony asked in a small voice.

Gibbs swallowed. He'd known his friend was wrestling with a lot of issues brought on by the news that he was not who he thought he was, at least as far as his name went. He'd also known, given the bits of information Tony had let slip over the years, that the younger man's childhood had been somewhat less than perfect. The question he'd posed was a perfectly natural one given the circumstances. Knowing that, though, didn't make it any easier a question to answer.

"I don't know, Tony," he answered. "I don't think anyone can really know how they would react to something until they're faced with it." He thought for a moment.

"I don't think you would," Tony said.

The certainty in his agent's voice surprised and, at the same time, humbled Gibbs somewhat. "You need to take me down off that pedestal you got me on, DiNozzo," he advised gently. "I'm just a man."

"Maybe, but you're a good man, the kind of man I want to be."

They shared a few moments of companionable silence. Then, Gibbs said, "I'd like to think to I wouldn't treat them any differently."

"Why not?" Tony asked.

Gibbs response was immediate. "It's not the child's fault." When Tony was silent for a few more minutes, he thought perhaps the younger man had finally fallen asleep. He started to slowly close the door when he heard Tony mutter wistfully, though he wasn't quite sure if he heard it right.

"Wish you could've been my dad."


End file.
